Through fever-bleary eyes, Kieran squinted at the pine trees around them.

Focus, damn it! His thoughts tried to amble away for the thousandth time in the last two days, but he needed to concentrate if they had any hope of finding the cottage.

With his shoulder blazing in agony and his mind clouded with fever, he cursed himself for taking Vivienne to this place. Yet he knew of nowhere else to go.

He’d always planned on bringing her to this remote spot, tucked away from even the most curious clansmen and wide-roaming hunters, but now that he could barely keep his seat in the saddle, he realized it had been a mistake to take her someplace so isolated. Even if he told her now what he sought, there was no way she would be able to guide them through the dense forest to the wee hidden clearing.

The last two days had been a blur of pain and fear as they’d ridden like the very Devil was on their heels. And in a way, he was; at least for the first day, Kieran was sure their attackers had been tracking them.

Even after turning Vivienne’s mare loose, he’d taken extra steps to shake them off their trail. At times they’d cut across streams and made circles with their tracks. But mostly they’d simply ridden for interminably long stretches, pushing both the horse and themselves to the edge of collapse.

Blessedly, the dappled stallion was stronger than any other he had seen—and stronger than Kieran, as well. Even when the horse was able to continue, they were forced to stop several times as Kieran teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, threatening to fall from the saddle and drag Vivienne with him.

Through the pain, through the dread, and through the heavy fog of fever that had settled over him the day after the attack, Kieran fought to hold off the darkness until he could get Vivienne safely to the cottage. But first he had to find the damned thing.

He swept his unfocused gaze over the forest once more. Thank God there had been no indication that they were being followed this past day. The terrain had grown rougher and the woods thicker, making their enemies’ pursuit far more difficult. But even wounded and fever-addled, this was his home territory. This land had made him. He wouldn’t be bested by it.

Aye, he recognized their surroundings now. Up ahead, the trees thinned, though the underbrush was wild and overgrown. He caught a glimpse of a sagging thatch roof. He blinked to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating, but the cottage held steady before his eyes.

“There,” he ground out, lifting his good arm to point at the clearing in front of them.

Vivienne sucked in a breath. “We are safe, then?”

If only he could simply say aye. “I doubt anyone will find us here.” Whether Kieran would be able to protect her if someone did was another matter.

He urged the stallion across the weed-clogged clearing to the cottage. Through the fog of pain, he silently cursed. The wee hut looked about as bad as he felt.

It was untouched, just as he’d left it ten years past—except for the destruction nature had wrought. The thatch roof drooped inward and would likely leak when the rains they’d ridden through earlier that morning reached them here.

One of the shutters on the sole window hung askew from its hinges, meaning that for however long it had been like that, the cottage had been open to wee beasties as well as the elements. The door looked solid enough, but worn by a decade of neglect, just like the rest of the small structure.

Vivienne slid from the stallion’s back, her movements stiff. Kieran swung down after her, but when his feet hit the ground, the whole world seemed to sway and tilt. Suddenly he was toppling into Vivienne, his weight nearly knocking her to the ground.

“Easy,” she said, struggling to keep him upright. He fumbled for the saddle’s pommel, anchoring himself even as the world continued to spin.

Her bonny face, drawn with worry, swam before him.

“We need to get that arrow out of you.”

He barely suppressed a wince at the mere thought. Aye, it had to be done, else there was no hope of remaining in the land of the living to ensure Vivienne’s safety.

At his grunt, she wedged herself under his good shoulder and guided him toward the door. She had to throw her weight against it before it opened with a groan of distended wood and a squeal of rusty hinges.

From the look of things inside, not a soul had set foot in the cottage since Kieran had abandoned it. The wooden table and chairs still sat off to the left near the empty hearth. A few of the cupboard doors hung open along the back wall, but naught seemed to have been touched. The straw-filled mattress pushed into the far right corner was in bad shape, but the wooden bedstead beneath it looked sturdy enough.

Dried leaves and twigs had collected in several corners, and there was a puddle in the middle of the floor where the thatch roof had leaked. A few moths fluttered through the open shutter at their entrance, but at least there were no signs that rats—or worse—had taken up residence in the cottage.

With Vivienne’s help, he stumbled to one of the chairs and lowered himself with a muffled groan.

“I should see to the horse,” he muttered, trying to rise almost immediately.

“Non,” she said firmly. “I’ll do that later.”

He must have been even weaker than he’d thought, for he didn’t argue. “There is a barn on the north side of the clearing. And a stream running behind it.”

She nodded, then hesitated. “I…I don’t know how to remove the arrow,” she said, her brows creased with concern as she eyed his shoulder. Her hand drifted to her mouth and she took her fingernail between her teeth before pulling it away abruptly.

“Dinnae fash. I’ll talk ye through it.” That was, if he could maintain his threadbare grip on consciousness. “Can ye carry our saddlebags inside, lass?”

“Oui.”

She hurried out of the cottage, returning a few moments later with one of the heavy leather bags held awkwardly in her arms, the other in tow behind her. She struggled inside, managing to avoid the puddle in the middle of the cottage before her strength gave out and she dropped them both.

“Pull out that skin of whisky I packed.” He’d had the wisdom to refill his waterskin at the palace in Scone, yet he’d meant to savor it over the sennights they were to remain here. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

As Vivienne approached with the skin, he removed the dagger from his boot and extended it toward her.

“Ye’ll have to cut away my shirt.”

As she began gingerly slicing at the linen, which was stained and stiffened with his dried blood, he took a long pull of whisky. The burn down his throat and into his stomach was a welcome distraction from the throbbing pain in his shoulder.

When the last scraps of his shirt lay at his feet, he took one more swig and reluctantly handed it to her.

“Pour some of that over the wound.”

His shoulder exploded in fire when the whisky hit it. He hissed every curse he knew through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes closed for a long moment.

“I’m sorry to hurt you,” Vivienne breathed, handing back the skin.

“Nay, lass, ye didnae,” he lied. “It’s just a bloody shame to waste such fine whisky.”

She exhaled a weak chuckle, but then sobered as she fixed him with a tense gaze. “What now?”

“Ye willnae be able to pull it out without the arrowhead doing far more damage. Ye’ll have to push it through.”

Confusion and disbelief widened her dark eyes. “But—”

Taking her wrist, he guided the point of the dagger to the front of his shoulder. Holding her there for a moment, he splashed more whisky over his unbroken skin and the tip of the blade, muttering about the proper uses for good Highland whisky.

He could feel her hand shaking beneath his. “It’s all right, lass,” he rasped, giving her a reassuring squeeze. Then without preamble, he plunged the dagger into his shoulder, giving it a twist for good measure.

Her horrified gasp reached him distantly through the ringing in his ears. He withdrew the dagger and released her trembling hand. She stared at her fingertips, which were tinged red with his blood, before lifting wide, midnight eyes to him.

“Now,” he said through gritted teeth, “push it out.”

Shifting the bloodied dagger to her other hand, she reached out tentatively and touched the wound on his back. He locked his jaw to prevent from growling.

She drew a deep breath, and suddenly he was engulfed in pain again as she pushed against the sawed-off end of the arrow shaft.

The damn thing was buried so deep that in a single heartbeat the arrowhead was already emerging, slick and bloody, from the cut he’d made in the front. When the tip thrust out of his skin, he snatched it and yanked it free in one swift motion.

He gulped lungfuls of air as his head swam, darkness encroaching on his vision. “Now the whisky again,” he ground out, handing her the skin.

When she poured more of the spirit into the open wound, both front and back, he roared in agony. He slumped forward in his chair for a long moment afterwards.

“Now I need to stitch you up, oui?” Vivienne asked.

“Aye.”

He didn’t have the wherewithal to say more, but luckily she seemed to know what to do now. She rummaged through her saddlebags until she came across a mending kit with needle and thread. After quickly dipping the needle into the whisky, she threaded it and held it poised over his shoulder.

“Do the front first,” he managed. His last shreds of control were slipping, and he feared if she started with the raw, angry wound on his back, unconsciousness would claim him before he could get to the bed.

Vivienne drew in another steeling breath, moving around to eye the cut on the front of his shoulder. “It is no different than the needlework I’ve done all my life,” she murmured to herself.

Kieran grunted. “Aye, but remember that I am no’ some scrap of silk for ye to embroider.”

He earned a smile for his gruff comment, which distracted him from most of the pain as she carefully stitched closed the exit wound. Still, as she tied off the last stitch, he was so woozy that he felt like he’d drunk the entire skin of whisky. If only.

“Ye’d best help me to the bed before ye finish,” he said. “Unless ye want to drag me there.”

He pushed himself up with a hand on the table, then leaned against her as he stumbled toward the bed. He eyed the ragged, damp straw mattress dubiously, then decided even fevered and injured, it would be better to sleep on the bare wooden slats beneath.

He grabbed the mattress with one hand and tugged it free of the bedstead, dropping it on the floor. Vivienne hurried to their bags once more, removing several extra lengths of plaid. She laid one over the bedstead’s slats and piled the others at the bottom to be used as blankets.

There was no more putting it off now. She took up the needle once more and he turned to give her the back of his shoulder. As she carefully closed the raw, burning wound, his vision began to blur.

He fought against the darkness, unwilling to leave Vivienne alone in this isolated wilderness to fend for herself, but it was a losing battle. As she tied the last stitch and pinched off the remaining thread, he collapsed onto the bed.

His last thought before unconsciousness swallowed him was that he was supposed to be looking after her, but he was damn lucky she was looking after him, too.