Helena woke slowly, savoring the heavy warmth encasing her. When at last she forced her eyes open, reality intruded once more. Her feet throbbed. Her legs were sore and stiff. And her belly felt once again as if it had been hollowed out with a spoon.

She lifted her head to find Logan Mackenzie staring intently at her. He rose from the little table where her clothes were draped and immediately approached, another bowl in his hands.

This time, the bowl held warm porridge with cream and chunks of dried apple on top. Helena ate gratefully as Logan fetched a cup of milk and set it on the ground beside the cot for her.

Only when the edge of her gnawing hunger had been softened did she look up. She found his sharp gray eyes still fixed on her. Heat crept into her cheeks, and beneath the blankets her bare skin pricked with awareness.

“Thank you,” she said, setting aside the empty bowl. “May I…may I have my clothes, please?”

“Yer dress and stockings are still damp,” he said, breaking their stare at last to turn to her garments. “But yer shift is dry.”

He lifted the thin linen shift from the table and shook it out. With morning light streaming in around the hut’s shuttered window, Helena could see just how sheer the shift was. How was she to remain before this rough-edged, fierce Highlander in no more than her shift?

And how was she to even put it on in the first place? Mindfulness of her nakedness once again sent a flush along her skin.

He must have noticed her nervousness, for he cleared his throat. As he extended the shift toward her, he turned his back, waiting.

Poking a bare arm from the protection of the blankets, she snagged the shift and quickly tugged it over her head. She shimmied it down her body beneath the covers, then quickly pulled the blankets back up to her chin.

“My dress, if you please.”

He half-turned toward her and lifted an eyebrow, making the scar along the left side of his face pull tight. “Ye cannae put it on while it is still wet. Besides, ye arenae going anywhere, lass.”

She blinked.

“Madge said ye were to rest,” he went on. “Off yer feet. They need time to heal.”

Though she wanted to protest, her body told her to obey. It felt as though the fortnight of walking had hit her all at once. Even with a full belly and a half dozen blankets to keep her warm, she was exhausted, achy, and overwhelmed.

At least there was something she could do while lying abed. She had a hundred questions for Logan, and there was naught wrong with her tongue.

“Where are we?”

“The northeastern Highlands,” he replied. Then to her surprise, a half-smile lifted one side of his mouth. “Ye managed to find one of the best-hidden spots in all of Scotland.”

Helena wasn’t sure what that meant, so she continued. “Are we in a village of some sort?”

Logan slowly picked up her empty bowl and cup, seeming to think on his words before speaking. “No’ a village. A small community, ye might say. We are in a camp that trains warriors who serve Robert the Bruce.”

She sat up at that, belatedly remembering to hold the blankets up to cover her chest. Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland and thorn to all English—his name was not spoken lightly in the Borderlands, where the English were being driven out and the Scots were reclaiming their lands and castles.

Helena pressed her lips together. Her brother Adam had given his life defending Craigmoor against a Scottish siege. And how many Scots had lost their lives at the hands of the English? It would not do to remind her Scottish rescuer just how much their countries hated each other, so she steered her questions in a different direction.

“How many people are here?”

“Ye’ve met me and Mairin,” Logan began. “And Lillian and Kirk. Madge doesn’t live here. There’s Ansel, though he doesnae truly live here either, for his wife and bairns live in the village an hour’s ride north. And then there’s Will, Niall, and Angus.”

Helena waited, but apparently Logan had concluded. “When you said this was a camp for your King, I’d assumed there would be…more,” she said after a moment. She paused, thinking. “You said the camp is hidden—secret. It must be quite special, then.”

Logan rubbed a palm along his reddish stubble. “Aye, I suppose ye could say that. It is for the King’s elite warriors.”

“And that makes you one of the King’s elite warriors,” she finished. It made sense. He was tall and broad with muscle, but there was also a lethal grace to his movements. His gray eyes bore a weariness that spoke of many hard times. Helena had no doubt that he had taken lives as a warrior, yet for some reason she did not feel afraid of him.

“No’ exactly,” he said, that sad half-smile returning. “It’s complicated. I train with the others, but I’m no’ one of them. I came here for Mairin.”

His eyes drifted to the closed door at the back of the hut. No noises or signs of activity announced the young woman’s presence, yet she must be there based on the way Logan looked pensively at the door.

“Why?” Helena murmured. Faint guilt twinged in her stomach for intruding on what was clearly a private family matter, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity. “Why would your sister need to be here?”

Logan dragged his gaze away from the door and met Helena’s searching stare. His eyes hardened to iron once again, though there was no cruelty in his gaze, only a lingering trace of the sadness she’d seen before.

“As I said, it’s complicated. Mairin has been through a great deal for a lass so young. I needed to ensure that she feels…safe.”

“And so you brought her to a hidden camp filled with Robert the Bruce’s most elite warriors,” she said.

“Supposedly hidden,” he replied, giving her another wry, weary grin. “Apparently no’ so well that a lost Englishwoman cannae stumble upon us, though.”

Although her lips itched to return his smile, Helena grew sober. “I won’t cause you any trouble, nor will I endanger your sister or the others here. I do not mean to be a burden, either. I can work, earn my keep.”

Logan closed the distance between them in two slow strides but didn’t speak. Flustered by his silence and nearness, she went on.

“I could do the camp’s laundry, or…or work in the barn. Do you have a barn here?”

He lifted a russet brow. “Aye, though a small one—only a few horses and cows, with a chicken coop next to it. Lillian is trying to civilize us.”

“Then I’ll muck out the stalls. I could milk the cows, too, and churn butter, and—”

“Lass,” Logan said gently, reaching for one of her hands. “Ye willnae be doing any work—at least no’ for a while. Ye need to rest and heal. And as I told ye, ye neednae fear that I’ll send ye away.”

The sudden sting of tears itched at the back of her throat and behind her eyes. Why was he being so kind? Helena didn’t trust such unquestioning benevolence. Geoffrey had once treated her this way, bending for her every comfort—and then she’d seen her death at his hands. Surely such a fate could not so easily be outrun? And even if it could, if Logan ever learned the truth, that she was cursed with visions—nay, such a fierce warrior could not be so compassionate. Could he?

“Besides,” he said, cutting into her thoughts, “even if yer feet were healed, ye wouldnae ken where to begin with all those chores.”

He slowly turned her palm over in his and traced it with his thumb. Helena’s stomach tilted and pulled tight at the brushing contact, as it had when he’d touched her face the night before. She felt her pulse jump and a little breath slip between her lips.

“Ye dinnae have the hands of a laborer or a servant,” he went on, trailing his thumb over her smooth palm. “Nay, yer hands tell me ye are a woman of means, mayhap even of nobility.”

She lifted her gaze to his and despite herself, she shivered. Those steely eyes were as sharp as blades. They seemed to cut through all her defenses.

A bell of warning rang in her mind even as she felt inexplicably pulled toward his warm, muscular form. She could never forget that revealing the truth—the whole of it—to this man, no matter how much her instincts told her she could trust him, would end in her ruin. Her father and Adam had driven that point home time and time again. She must not let her mind be clouded by his nearness.

“I willnae force ye to speak,” he said at last, his voice low and soft. “Tell me what ye will in yer own time—or no’ at all. But I will hold ye to yer vow no’ to bring any harm to my sister.”

She nodded slowly, holding his stare. Yet she willed herself to remain silent so as not to inadvertently expose more of her secrets. His sharp eyes missed naught, and his wits had pieced together much. She feared he was already close to unraveling far more than she wished to reveal.

He continued to stroke her palm absently, but then he seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped her hand.

“I must return to training,” he said abruptly, stepping back. “The others willnae bother ye—I told them ye needed yer rest. Mairin should come out eventually.” He glanced at the closed door again, his voice dropping. “But sometimes she doesnae.” A shadow crossed his eyes once more. “I’ve asked her to help ye if ye need aught while I am gone.”

He strode swiftly to the hut’s front door, not bothering to snatch up his cloak. Without a glance back, he stepped through the door and closed it firmly behind him.

Helena dragged in a shaky breath. Was it possible that Logan had hurried away because he had been as affected by the contact of their skin as she had?

Like a blanket of snow, a thick, still silence fell over the hut. Though she knew Mairin was only a few paces away in her chamber, a strange sense of isolation took root in the pit of Helena’s stomach.

It seemed she was to be left alone with her thoughts—thoughts of Logan’s stormy eyes and heated touch.