Chapter Nine
Sorcha couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. They were standing in the wide open, with nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. And blast it all to hell, she’d left her sword and bow with her horse!
Brandt had planted himself directly in front of her, obscuring her view of Malvern’s two men a split second after each of them aimed their pistols right at Brandt. A spike of fear took hold inside of her, a lick of fire racing up the back of her neck and sending out a frenzied beat of panic.
“Send the Beast over here,” Coxley said, beckoning with his free hand. The words did not bother her, but the sight of the man, as always, made her feel nauseated. She loathed Malvern, but Coxley made Malvern seem like an angel in comparison. “We’ve instructions to deliver her unharmed.”
“She isn’t going anywhere with you,” Brandt replied, his tone flat and obstinate and so bloody certain. Was the man addled? He sounded far too confident, as if there weren’t a brace of pistols a crack away from ending his life.
“You’re not very bright, are you?” Coxley’s man asked with a bark of mean laughter.
“I just have a better view,” Brandt replied.
Sorcha peered up at her husband’s profile, trying to understand his words, when a shot rang out. She startled and yelped as the man beside Coxley crumpled to the ground, gunpowder smoke clouding the air directly behind him. With a war cry, Ronan leaped from the woods the two men had just come through and collided with Coxley, taking the man to the ground.
“Go!” her brother roared to them as he used his spent weapon to crack the knight across the temple.
Sorcha felt a hand wrench her arm and then she was being dragged back, toward the dense forest, Brandt shouting at her to run.
“Ronan!” she cried, half turning as they stumbled toward the woods to view her brother facing off against Coxley, who’d somehow found his feet. The brutish first knight attacked Ronan with a fist to the ribs, but she didn’t get to see what happened next. Her feet tripped over themselves and she spun forward, nearly falling on the uneven ground. Ronan could handle himself, but she’d seen Coxley’s cruelty before, when the marquess had visited Maclaren. He’d pummeled one of his own men bloody just for looking at a wench he’d been lusting after. The man fought dirty, and without any shred of honor.
“Faster, Sorcha!” Brandt ordered, wringing her arm practically from its socket to keep her from falling. But she couldn’t. Her legs were jelly, her heartbeat thrashing. Her brother was the most powerful and capable warrior she knew, but he had just come through battle and was tired. What if he faltered? What if he lost?
Her eyes stung, and the tree trunks and thick canopy were blurred as she and Brandt entered on foot, their horses left behind at the river’s edge.
“We must go back, we must help him!” she said as they veered around a giant boulder, Brandt still gripping her arm and pulling her, as if he knew she would stop and turn back otherwise. And he was right, she would have. She should. What had she done? Seven of Ronan’s men had died that morning. Seven. And now her brother… She squeezed her lids shut to clear the haze of tears. No. Ronan would not fall. He was the future laird of Maclaren, and he would survive.
But those other men. Their blood had been spilled, their lives extinguished, because of her and her foolish and selfish desire to avoid marriage to Malvern. Her feet turned to lead.
Brandt stopped running then and stooped to wrap his arms around her waist. With an easy toss, he flipped her over his shoulder and took off again, running through the forest’s undergrowth. Her furious shriek snagged in her throat, the blood swamping her head at the ungainly position.
“Put me down, ye wretched amadan!”
“You’re too slow,” he huffed, “and too damned mulish.”
Sorcha pounded him on the back, insisting he let her down, that she could run just as fast as him. But with every pounding step he took, she felt the sharp press from the shallow slice in her ribs. The tip of an enemy sword had sliced into her during the several moments of pure terror she’d spent distracted by the sight of Brandt being tossed from his horse and set upon by that hulking warrior. She’d quickly skewered the man who’d injured her, but the cut hurt like the devil, and now, folded over her husband’s shoulder, she felt the brunt of it.
“Brandt,” she protested again, “put me down!”
She wasn’t by any means light, what with her long legs and the muscle she’d built over years spent in the keep’s training grounds. And yet here this lunatic was, running with her with as much ease as if she’d been a sack of feathers instead of a full-grown woman. His strength astounded her. If she weren’t so fuming angry and worried, she might have appreciated his brawn and determination. She might have even spent more time viewing the hard, muscled backside and powerful legs that were fully in her view. Even upside down, she felt her pulse quicken.
Diah, she was more of an amadan than he was. Sorcha hissed through clenched teeth. She’d call herself a fool in Gaelic, English, and every other language if she had to. She was no damsel to be rescued, to be scooped into a man’s arms—no matter how sinewy they were—and whisked to safety. She could bloody well take care of herself. Ignoring the burn in her side, she resumed her pounding.
“How dare ye manhandle me! Who do ye think ye are!”
The chill air coming off the river hit her back, and she knew they had come to a crossing. Brandt splashed through the shallow fjord.
“Your husband.”
She wriggled, flinching at the sting in her ribs. “Husband or no’, ye don’t have the right!”
“Oh, I do,” he replied huffing. “Even in this Godforsaken place there is law, and by law you are my property. I can do with you as I like.”
Brandt emerged from the river, the splashes of water having soaked Sorcha’s hair, tumbling down over her face. He kept moving, holding her firm even as she struggled for release. How dare he? She was no one’s property!
“Ye brute!”
“Give up,” he grunted.
“Never!”
Blood rushed into her head and through her ears, but within a few minutes the noises surrounding them suddenly muffled. The bright dappled sunlight darkened. And when Brandt finally crouched and slid Sorcha from the prison of his shoulder, she realized he’d taken them into the shelter of a rocky outcropping. Her vision spun from the sudden shift of blood flow, draining now from her head, and Sorcha stumbled.
Brandt’s arms came up and locked her in a steadying embrace. He was breathing heavily from exertion, his skin ruddy and misted with sweat from carrying her. Perspiration had dampened the curls of his hair, turning them to burnt copper as they clung to his brow.
She shoved at him, even with her head feeling faint and black speckles swimming in her vision. “Ronan’s my family, and ye made me run like a coward!”
“You’d have been nothing but a distraction, and you likely would’ve gotten him killed!”
A spear of guilt lanced through her chest. Like the others. She’d gotten the other men killed. Good men. Husbands and sons. Brothers and fathers. Back home at Maclaren their families would mourn them, and they would know…they would know their loved one had died trying to protect a selfish woman.
She felt her body sag, the anger swirling inside of her snuffing out like a doused wick.
“Sorcha,” Brandt murmured, trying to gather her close. She wanted to let him wrap her in an embrace. Wanted to drink in the comfort his arms and strong body offered. But she shook her head and pulled away. This time, Brandt released her.
“Don’t,” he said as she turned from the mouth of the outcropping and sank into a crouch.
“Don’t what?” she asked.
“Don’t blame yourself.” She stiffened, uncertain if she liked, or was annoyed, by the fact that he could read her so well.
“Easy for you to say,” she said.
“It isn’t easy.” The stone cavern reverberated his voice, making it seem louder. Closer. “A part of me is angry with you. Furious even, that I am here, caught in this mess and running for my life. Even to gain a horse I’ve wanted for years—that’s now likely lost for good—it’s more than any sane man should be expected to bear. That part of me longs to cast blame on you.”
Sorcha hadn’t expected such a brutally honest reply. It made her twist and stare up at him. And there was no denying that it gutted her.
She exhaled a ragged breath. “Then why shouldn’t I blame myself? If you do?”
“I said I longed to, but Sorcha…I can’t.”
Brandt dropped into a crouch, too, coming face to face with her. The gold-flecked, autumn-colored eyes that held hers glowed in the muted light. A bevy of emotion—sorrow, compassion, understanding—chased through them. Her chest hollowed with a sudden sharp ache, one that left her confused.
“If for some reason I woke up and found myself back at the festival that day, I’d let you kiss me all over again.”
More heat saturated her, but this time it wasn’t guilt or temper. It swam low in her stomach and snaked out to her thighs. She stared at him, her lips parting in surprise. “Why?”
“Because no woman should ever be made to marry a man such as Malvern. Because I want you to fight,” he answered, his hand reaching for her face. His fingers, the ones that made her skin tingle and flare with every random touch, tenderly stroked her cheek. “Because you wouldn’t be the woman your brothers know you to be, the woman I’m beginning to know, if you’d just lain down and given up.”
She watched his lips moving and heard the words falling through her ears, into her aching, needy soul. They filled her and immediately pushed the tears she’d been holding at bay over the rims of her eyes. He swiped the first few teardrops as they fell, before tugging her close. Sorcha didn’t fight him. She was tired of resisting, and his hands weren’t the enemy. This time, she let him fold her in his arms, both of them sitting on the hard-packed dirt of the cavern.
“I don’t like crying.” She sniffled into his shirt and felt a rumble of laughter echo in his chest.
“And I don’t like losing my temper,” he said. “So we’re both at sixes and sevens.”
She peered up at him with a wry look, slanting her brows. “You wouldn’t know what a temper is, Sassenach. Trust me, with brothers like mine, I’m an expert.”
He matched her expression with one of his own. “I’m learning. My father, Monty, was quite even-keeled.”
“He was English, wasn’t he?”
“No. Scottish.”
“A Scot?” she replied. “If your birth mother was Scot as well as your father, then that makes you—”
“A bastard. They weren’t married, Sorcha. And considering I was raised in England, I don’t consider myself Scottish. I have no ties here. No family that I know of, nor that I want to know of. I know where I belong.”
She sealed her lips, swallowing a ready reply about a person needing to know where they come from. Who they come from. Blood ties mattered, even if a man was born on the wrong side of the blanket.
A pained look shuttered his features, tugging at her insides. Sorcha knew she should pull away. The harsh way he’d admitted his regret about marrying her that morning had hurt something fierce. But resting against him now, sensing his vulnerability and hearing the steady, soothing rhythm of his heartbeat, made everything outside the cavern seem to disappear. It almost made her want to forget what he’d said, but words could scar just as deeply as a pair of claws. Or a sword. She shifted slightly and winced.
“Your wound?” he asked.
“A scratch,” she said, eyeing the grimy linen. “I’ll have to clean it properly and find some packing herbs to ward off infection.” She grunted, feeling a renewed wave of self-disgust. “I was careless.”
“Without you, Sorcha, more men would have died,” Brandt said quietly. “You acted bravely, and you’re one hell of a warrior.”
“You’re a competent fighter, yourself,” she said.
It felt like a truce. Like they were starting afresh. She offered him a slight smile.
“Only competent?” he asked, amusement lightening his tone and drawing up the corner of his mouth.
“For a stable master.”
“I have my skills,” he said.
Indeed, he did. Her gaze dropped to his sensuous mouth and darted away. Unconsciously, she shivered, recalling one of his skills in particular in devastating detail. Their eyes met, and she fought to conceal her thoughts from him. It was a losing battle. That stare of his could unmask the secrets of a saint, let alone her too transparent desires. Her cheeks flamed, and she licked her lips. His eyes fastened to her mouth, and the inadvertent motion of her tongue wiped the humor from both his face and hers.
It had to be the shortest-lived truce in existence.
“Sorcha,” he began and, knowing what he was going to say, she wriggled from his grasp.
“There’s no need to speak of it,” she said. “It was a mistake, like you said.”
Sorcha knew he’d growled the declaration to what he’d believed to be an empty tent. His conscience, perhaps, had been his only intended audience. Which made it even more painfully honest and impossible to ignore. When this was over, she would gladly give him Lockie and a dozen of her father’s horses for his trouble. It was the least he deserved.
Brandt scrubbed a palm over his face. “I was upset at the situation. And I was…frustrated.”
“Why?”
A sudden smile made his eyes crinkle. “Waking up in the arms of a half-naked woman can do that to a man.”
“Oh. Oh.” Her mouth went dry. He meant sexual frustration. Every nerve in her body came scorchingly alive. Sorcha couldn’t think, couldn’t formulate any response that required more than one syllable.
“Clearly, I’ve shocked the speech from you.” He made it sound like he’d won a badge of honor.
Bristling, Sorcha opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again when a noise outside the cavern startled them both. Thank God, was her first thought, and then, Oh God, Ronan!
Brandt rocked to his feet, a hand in the air to signal her to wait. She heard the distinct sound of horse tack and an irritated nicker, probably ten yards away, closer to the river. Had Coxley followed them? Found them. Sorcha’s stomach collapsed. Brandt moved slowly to the cavern entrance…and then the tension along his shoulders fell away.
He gave a short, sharp whistle and a few moments later, Ares and Lockie appeared through the short ridge of trees. Sorcha got up on wobbly feet, gaping at the horses.
“How—” she started to say.
“Ares,” Brandt answered, taking his horse by the traces and rubbing his nose. “He can always find me.”
And he’d brought Lockie along on the hunt, she figured, smiling with no small amount of relief as she stepped out from under the outcropping and reached for her mount’s intact saddlebags. Inside she found one of several tins and glass vials, all of which contained salves and ointments, herbs and tinctures. Exclaiming her delight, she pulled a thin tube from the satchel.
Brandt eyed her. “What is that?”
“It’s a salve my mother made. She’s a healer. I’ve picked up a few of her skills here and there, though I’m no means as good as she is. This liniment will accelerate the healing.”
Gathering more supplies, she sat on the ledge and drew a deep breath. She tucked the hem of her shirt high, exposing a pale swatch of her torso. She didn’t miss the way Brandt’s gaze scoured the display of skin before he angled his head away. Blushing, she stifled the burst of modesty. She was careful not to raise the hem too high, to keep the grotesque web of scars above it hidden from view. She’d sooner die than let anyone, much less him, see her ugliest secret.
Gingerly, she unwrapped the dirty bandage, recoiling at the sting as the dried, hardened linen tore at her exposed flesh. It was not a bad cut, but she knew more than anyone how injuries could fester if not properly cared for; one speck of dirt left in a wound could undo everything. The reason the ones on her face hadn’t succumbed to infection and left ugly, puckered scarring was because of this very balm. The ones on her body, sadly, had become septic, and though the salve had been applied, the mangled skin, even after the stitches had been removed, had left behind a grisly patchwork.
Brandt watched her as she poured some clear liquid from another bottle onto a cloth and gently dabbed at the incision. She bit her lip hard and tasted blood. It stung, but pain now meant less of it later.
“Let me,” Brandt said, crouching and taking the cloth from her.
She didn’t protest, but as before when he’d first cleaned the wound, she gripped her forearms tightly over her breasts. He skimmed softly along the cut, and she winced again. He bent to blow gently on it, his breath feathering against her skin. The unexpected combination of his warm exhalation and the icy sting of the liquid made her gasp. But it was when he gripped her right hip to steady her that a different kind of sensation radiated through her veins—a crude, frantic sort of sensation that both thrilled and terrified.
Sweet Saint Andrew.
The press of his fingers left a scorching imprint upon her flesh, burning through her clothes and making infernal urges take flight as desire spun into a storm inside of her. She’d never been more acutely aware of a man in her life…his big hand clutching her, his mouth gusting on her exposed stomach. Every feminine part of her throbbed.
Sorcha nearly levered her body upward, if only to make contact with the parted lips that hung inches away from her skin, expelling that stream of cool air. She wanted him to press his lips to her skin. To kiss her everywhere, scars and fears be damned. The span of his hot palm together with the sight of his head bent over her torso caused her inner muscles to clench almost violently. Christ, if he did put his lips on her, she might very well faint from the pleasure.
Her body alternated between acute pain and intense arousal as he ministered to her wound, and by the time he was finished, Sorcha was strung as tightly as a bow. Brandt lifted his palm, and she could swear that the shape of his hand remained imprinted on her hip. Blushing fiercely, she reached for the salve but was too slow.
“Do I just swipe it on like this?” he asked, smearing some ointment onto the pad of his finger. His voice was husky, his eyes heavy-lidded, which made her feel like she had not been the only one affected.
Incapable of speech, she nodded.
And nearly died when his hot fingertip grazed her skin. Gooseflesh erupted everywhere. On her ribs, her torso, her breasts. With infinite care, he rubbed in the balm while Sorcha clung to reason by a slim thread, unraveling by the second, as every greedy inch of her burned and begged for more. One more stroke and she would splinter into a thousand pieces right there and then. God. It was torture. Exquisite, hideous, excruciating torture.
His thumb grazed the linen gathered beneath her forearm covering the underside of her breast, and she stifled a shriek. A desperate sound born of longing and a healthy fear of discovery.
“That’s enough,” she gasped, rising and tugging her shirt down.
Putting a few healthy steps between them, she drew a ragged breath at the sting from the balm and fetched some more strips of linen from her bags. Without looking at him, she deftly wrapped the bandage and tucked the shirt into her trousers before rewrapping her plaid. His eyes met her, smoldered across the space, and Sorcha resisted the urge to strip herself bare and leap at him.
Gulping a lungful of air, she backed farther away and added another thing to her list of dislikes. She hated feeling trapped. She hated crying. And she bloody well hated this brain-melting, wit-consuming, goddamned wanting. It had even somehow been powerful enough to steal away the sensation of pain. Surely, that wasn’t natural.
“We should go,” Brandt said, his voice huskier than normal. “Put some space between us and Malvern’s men.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
A hell-for-leather, bracing ride on Lockie wouldn’t be unwelcome, either, to put herself to rights. She was truly shameless. Her brother could be dead, and all she could think about was dragging the man standing two feet away to the ground and having her wicked way with him.
Sorcha hesitated, guilt returning in force as she thought of Ronan. Brandt eyed her, correctly interpreting her expression. “Your brother’s only wish was for your safety, Sorcha. Even before you met me, he planned to get you away. Don’t let whatever you hope to do by going back there get in the way of what he wanted.” His words flowed over her like the salve on her skin. Calming. Soothing. “Ronan will find you.”
If he isn’t dead.
“He’s not, Sorcha,” Brandt said, reading her. “He would move mountains to see you safe. Death is a paltry enemy for a warrior like him.”
Huffing a shallow breath, Sorcha stared at the stranger she had married, at the conviction on his face. No man, outside of her father and brothers, had ever been so mindful. He had no reason to be here but for a promise made to her brother to see her safe. He’d already won Lockie. There was nothing in it for him to comfort her, though he did it anyway.
Once more, the slightest intuition of danger settled over her, as if she were standing in the shallows of a loch and about to step into precariously deep waters. It wasn’t because of Coxley or Ronan. It wasn’t because they were alone in the woods on the run from a mad marquess. Or because she’d sustained an injury.
It was because of this man.
Brandt was more dangerous to her than any of them combined.