“Fergus!”

Her scream echoed through his head, again and again. But he could not reach her. He was lost in the dark, so far from her that her voice grew fainter until it was silent.

He struggled against the heaviness in his limbs, the sense that he moved through the thickest mud. There was no getting through it. He could not even lift his head.

“Moira…” His mouth was dry as he whispered her name—he’d wished to scream it, to tear through the darkness with it.

He opened his eyes, and it was no longer as dark.

Where was he?

Her scream echoed through his head again. He remembered.

“Moira.” He struggled to his feet in spite of the ache in his head, the dizziness it caused. The bastard had struck him in the head in the hopes of killing him.

Must have thought he’d succeeded, too, or else he would not have left his victim.

He shook his head, gently. It felt as though everything inside rattled around when he did. How long had he been out? He looked up through the trees, found it dark. The rain had stopped, but the ground was still wet, and the clouds were just breaking up, revealing the moon in pieces at a time.

He whistled softly and was rewarded with a soft neighing. They hadn’t taken the horse. Perhaps they felt they had no use for it—and that he would have no use for it as a dead man.

They were the dead men, whoever they were. They did not know it yet, but he would be certain to make it clear.

Especially if they’d harmed her.

He mounted the gelding, taking a moment to orient himself to his surroundings before leading it from the woods and back to the road.

Like as not, there were more than one of them—after all, one struck him and at least one other attacked Moira.

The thought brought bile to his throat which he swallowed back with grim determination. There was no time for indulging in dismay.

He searched the ground for footprints, though it was a struggle to find them with the moon hiding behind clouds, then peeking out.

Finally, light flooded the road, and he made out a set of hoofprints in the mud surrounded by large footprints.

None belonging to a small woman such as Moira, but they may have flung her over the saddle.

If they’d brought her along at all.

What if they’d left her in the woods and he’d ridden away from her? What if she was waiting there, as he’d been, not yet awake?

What if there was no waking her?

No. He would not believe it. She could not die.

They would not have gone through the trouble of capturing her to merely kill her on the spot. They would take her elsewhere, bring her along with them on their journeys.

The bitter humor of it all struck him then.

Had she not wished to ride along with a group of men as they traveled up the road and down?

He wanted to shout her name.

Instead, he followed the hoofprints, sometimes waiting for the clouds to clear the moon once again when he lost sight of the imprints in the mud.

His head ached horribly, worse than he could ever have imagined. His vision doubled once, twice, but he was able to clear it by shaking his head and blinking hard. A mere aching head would not stop him from finding his woman.

For she was, even if she did not know it. She was his and always would be. The only woman he’d ever loved, would ever love.

The only one who’d ever stirred the feeling she did, the only one he could imagine infuriating him so while making him want her just the same.

He would have no other.

When hoofprint and footprint both turned left, veering off the road and into the woods, he dismounted. It would be easier and safer to travel by foot.

By that point, the sky had begun to lighten in the east. How long had she been with the band of them? What had they done to her?

If he had been unconscious too long, taken too long on the road…

He snarled as he tied the reins off to a branch, causing the horse to neigh softly as it felt his anger. “Easy, now,” he whispered to the gelding, patting its neck. “I shall return for ye, never fear. Be as silent as ye can, now.”

Did it understand? He doubted it. But it seemed as though he ought to say something.

Whatever had been done had been done, he reasoned, but he could put an end to anything else which they had in mind before it happened. It would be a matter of calling upon his old skills, making his way silently through the night.

He had little time to do it, as the sun would be on the rise sooner than he would’ve liked.

His attacker had made another mistake in not checking whether he’d carried a dirk—the man’s pride had clouded his judgment when he’d assumed the blow to Fergus’s head had killed him.

For what use did a dead man have with a dirk?

Any fire the cutthroats had built had long since died out, leaving no trace of smoke on the air, though Fergus thought he smelled something else. Roast meat, or what was left of it. The smell grew easier to identify when the breeze blew, the camp they’d made sitting upwind of where he stood.

He darted through the trees, careful to avoid twigs, branches, anything that might reveal him. If any of them were awake, they would be on the alert for such a disturbance.

Though it was unlikely they would expect him.

He stopped, closed his eyes, listened for noise. Men breathing, talking, horses. Anything to give them away. He’d already moved deep into the woods, so deep it was difficult to say whether the sun was on the rise or still beneath the horizon. Only brief glimpses of sky were visible through gaps in the branches above.

A man’s voice. Faint, but present. “Stay where ye are.”

Fergus peered through a tangle of branches, not daring to move them for fear of revealing himself.

“…need privacy…”

Her voice. He thrilled at the sound of it. She was angry, which meant they had not harmed her enough to take the heart from her. She could not be far.

“Wait yer turn,” a deep voice grumbled.

He froze. Rustling. Snapping twigs, shuffling leaves. As though a large animal were moving toward him.

Not an animal. A man.

Fergus pressed his back to the trunk of a wide pine and watched over his shoulder as a tall, clumsy man walked through the brush on his way to relieve himself. He stopped three trees from where Fergus waited, unaware that he’d been watched all the while.

How many men were there in total? At the very least, dispatching with this one would better the chances of success with the others.

Bent at the waist, staying low, he dashed toward the enemy. The man stood with his back to Fergus, sighing in relief, one arm against a tree to steady himself. Lost in the simple pleasure of making his morning water.

A shame to break in on such a moment, but Fergus wasted no time in reaching the man, throwing an arm around his throat to grasp the opposite side of his jaw while his other hand held the back of the man’s head.

One sharp twist and the man fell without making a sound.

Fergus looked over his shoulder. No one had followed. No one was the wiser.

He followed the man’s tracks back to the camp, careful not to make a sound. He was on the battlefield again, but the stakes were now higher than they’d ever been. Not only his life, but hers, which meant so much more.

She sat against a boulder, bound at the wrist and ankle. Her head hung forward, tresses covering her face. She was weary, filthy, but her kirtle appeared to be in one piece.

Had the cutthroats forced themselves upon her, Fergus had no doubt she would have fought like a wild animal and torn her garment to shreds in the process.

This was what he hoped, at the very least. He needed to hang onto every last bit of hope.

Another large man snored to her left, lying on his back with hands folded atop a mountain of a stomach. Her guard, Fergus supposed, though a guard ought to remain awake.

On the other side of the dead fire sat a man with a patch over one eye, who slept with his back to a tree. His chin touched his chest, which rose and fell in time with his slow breathing.

If he had to make a wager, Fergus would have named the one-eyed man as the leader of the group. He was older, his greasy hair streaked with gray, so he would wish to give orders.

And he slept with a dirk balanced on his outstretched thighs. Left in plain sight, easy for him to take hold of should anything wake him.

Fergus would need to take the dirk from him, then, or risk the bastard using it to threaten Moira—unless he could free her first. But she’d be stiff, sore, her feet likely numb after being bound so long. She might not be able to run.

He would have to take the chance that she would. If anyone could, it would be her.

With this in mind, he skirted the camp, taking extra care to avoid making a sound. His eyes moved back and forth between the camp and the ground before him, each step planned before he took it.

Before long, he crouched behind the boulder which Moira leaned against. How to get her attention without alerting the other two?

He picked up a pinecone and rolled it before him, where it came to rest against her leg. She did not stir. He rolled another. Another.

Finally, after the fourth such attempt, her head lifted. She looked over her shoulder.

He held a finger to his lips.

She gave a startled jump but made no sound. Her eyes filled with tears.

He held up his dirk, making a sawing motion with it.

She shook her head, her eyes moving to the sleeping one-eyed man. She was correct; he would not have the time to free her feet before one or both men awoke.

She motioned for him to duck behind the boulder. He did so, dirk at the ready, holding his breath and straining to listen.

“I need to make water,” she announced, raising her voice to a near shout.

He smiled. Clever lass. She would draw another of them away from the camp.

“Shut yer mouth,” the man closest to him grumbled. The one asleep at her side.

“It would be wise of you to take me to make water, or else you’ll be sleeping with it all about your head,” she snarled. Even though their situation was a dire one, Fergus had to stifle a laugh.

“Take ‘er,” the second man muttered. “And where is Alec? He has not returned.”

“I need to go, now!” Moira shouted.

She knew where this Alec was, Fergus realized, and did what she could to turn attention back to herself before either of them decided to look about the woods for him.

“Take ‘er, for the love of the gods,” the one-eyed man spat. “And be quick about it!”

“Watch where you place your hands,” she warned, hot-tempered as ever.

“I’ll place ‘em where I wanna place ‘em,” the brute chuckled, making Fergus grit his teeth in anticipation of spilling the bastard’s guts. She let out a muffled cry of surprise, which he took as her being thrown over the man’s shoulder.

Sure enough, the two of them emerged from the other side of the boulder, Fergus shrinking back to avoid notice. Twas a matter of luck that Moira’s body was over the man’s right shoulder, blocking Fergus from view.

Her eyes met his. He nodded, tiptoeing behind them while she grumbled and argued—all to cover any sound he made, Fergus knew.

“You shall have to untie my ankles,” she announced. He ducked behind a tree when the cutthroat dropped her to her feet. “I cannot do what needs to be done with my legs so tight together.”

“Whatcha mean?”

“You cannot be serious. You do not know how a woman—never mind,” she growled. “Trust me when I tell you, I shall need my legs freed. I can manage with my wrists bound, but you must free my ankles.”

“He won’t like it.”

“I think he would be wise enough to know what needs to be done,” she sneered. “You might return and ask his permission, though, if you do not trust yourself to make decisions.”

“Shut yer mouth, as he said, or I’ll shut it for ye.” Just the same, when Fergus peered out from behind the tree, he found the man on one knee, untying Moira’s ankles.

“There,” he grunted, but before he could stand, Fergus was on his back, the rope used to bind Moira now about the man’s throat.

“That was all you had to do,” Moira announced, raising her voice over the grunts of the dying man. “It’s clear to me you’ve never taken a woman before, or else you might at least know she squats to relieve herself. It leads me to wonder what else you do not know about women, which I’m certain is quite a lot!”

Meanwhile, Fergus tightened the rope about the man’s thick neck, struggling to hold on in spite of the thrashing which quickly weakened, then ceased.

“What are ye on about?” the one-eyed man shouted.

“Your man here doesn’t know how a woman goes about her business!” Moira called back. There was a quaver in her voice.

Fergus turned his attention to her, working the ropes around her wrists. “Are ye injured, lass?”

“Nothing more than my face,” she whispered. “They thought they killed you. I knew they hadn’t. I knew you wouldn’t die so easily.”

“How could I die when ye were still here, waiting for me?” When her wrists were free, she threw her arms about his neck, and he allowed himself to hold her for the briefest moment before releasing her, pushing her away. “Go. Run for the road. I shall meet ye.”

“What will you do?”

“Just go!”

“Aye.” A third voice. A snarl. “Ye’d better run, lass, unless ye wish to see what I know about women.”

Fergus turned to find the one-eyed man behind him. “You’re not the only one who can sneak about, lad,” he snarled, his dirk at the ready. “And I’ll make ye see what I do to those who kill my men.”

“Run, Moira!” Fergus pushed her away before throwing himself at the man, taking the arm whose hand held the dirk and smashing it against a tree in hopes that he would drop the weapon.

“Fergus!” Moira’s voice rang in his head as he wrestled the man to the ground, both of the snarling and cursing each other, rolling this way and that.

Fergus rolled the man to his back and managed to land a solid blow against his face, then another, before the dirk appeared again, slashing at him.

He took the man’s wrist in both hands and pushed it away, absorbing the blows to his ribs from the other fist.

“You bastard!” Moira screamed, kicking the side of the man’s head.

“I said run!” Fergus bellowed, as the man cried out and slashed at her instead of at Fergus with the dirk. She jumped back in time, but just barely.

The one-eyed man took advantage of the distraction, bucking Fergus from him and swinging the dirk about in a wide arc. He might have sliced into Fergus’s chest or stomach had he focused his movement rather than wildly slashing at whatever he could reach.

As it was, a sharp, white-hot pain exploded in Fergus’s thigh, radiating through his leg.

He roared in pain and fury, somehow strengthened by both, took the man’s wrist while his arm was still in motion and swiftly bringing the dirk to rest in his chest. Again. Again.

Until he went still.

“Fergus?” Moira whimpered, rushing to him. “Are you hurt?”

“I wish I could say I wasn’t.” He struggled to his feet and found himself unable to place weight on his left leg. The injured leg.

“What did he do to you?” She let out a squeak when she noted the blood soaking into his trousers.

“Badly… badly cut,” he muttered, his hands shaking as they untied his belt. He closed his eyes, leaning his back to a tree, forcing his breathing to slow. The more he panicked, the faster the blood would flow from him.

He was deliberate in his movements, looping the leather about his upper thigh and cinching it tight. “Come,” he muttered. “We must go. I left the gelding by the road. We cannot stay here, with the bodies about. We must get away from this place.”

“You cannot move like this!” Moira protested, yet he did just that. He limped back to the camp, where they took hold of the mare, then through the woods to where he’d left his horse near the road.

“I do not know if I can ride,” he admitted as he led the gelding to the road, glancing behind him to the trail of blood he’d left. His leg was soaked with it, his hands covered. He already felt weak, faint.

In the early morning light, things looked much worse for him than they had in the dark woods.

He began to wonder if this was the end for him.

“We must see to your wound,” Moira fretted, her breathing short and fast.

His vision doubled, then began to darken.

Was it the sky darkening? Did the sun disappear behind a cloud?

No, he felt the warmth on his skin.

“Fergus, you are bleeding all over the road, you cannot ride!” Moira shouted, taking his shoulders in her hands. “Fergus, you must listen to me!”

It was the loss of blood. He was dying.

“Moira…” He blinked hard, forcing his eyes open wide.

“Fergus, what is it?”

“I need…” He slumped slightly, then righted himself.

“Stay awake, Fergus.” She led the mare to the other side of the road and tied it off, then ran back to him. “Come, we must find somewhere you can rest.”

He felt himself dying. Fading away. He opened his mouth to tell her he did not regret saving her from the cutthroats even if it did kill him.

Because he loved her.

Instead, he fell, unconscious before hitting the ground.