Curse his hands, he’d shot a child.
Then he peered closer by the fading twilight. Nae, not a child. A slight, slender lass.
Though she lay as still as death, she wasn’t dead. Thank Odin, he’d been able to redirect the arrow at the last moment, thus sparing her life.
He turned her carefully toward him, and she revived with a wheezing gasp, reflexively scrabbling at the outside of her thigh, where his arrow obscenely protruded.
“Nae!” he cautioned. “Leave it be!”
Her eyes widened, and he instantly withdrew his hands, trying not to panic her, raising his palms in what he hoped was a placating gesture.
The last thing he expected was the sting of a sharp needle through his open hand.
He grunted in pain, drawing back his wounded palm. Blood welled from the puncture. He sucked a sharp hiss through his teeth.
The needle had pierced him deeply. But he supposed he should have known better. After all, only a fool approached a wounded animal.
Her left arm arced toward him again with whatever vicious weapon she wielded.
He lunged aside. “Nae, lass! I mean ye no—”
His words were cut short as her right fist clipped his jaw.
“Ach!”
The needle returned to graze his bare neck, leaving a stinging trail.
“Son of a… Lass, cease! ’Twas an acci—”
She ignored his command, attacking him again and again, as if she intended to fight him to the death. Damn! If she didn’t stop thrashing about, she’d drive the arrow deeper into her thigh.
“Woman!” he finally bellowed, startling her into momentary submission. “Put away your weapon. I’m friend, not foe.”
Florie didn’t believe him for an instant. Whether he was Gilbert’s man she couldn’t tell. ’Twas too dark to make out his face or the color of his cloak. But the villain had shot her. Shot her!
She’d managed to wound him with her brooch pin. She’d heard his grunt, felt the point sink into his flesh. But she hadn’t inflicted enough damage to stop him. And if she didn’t… If he turned her over to the law…
Fighting for her life, she stabbed forward with the brooch again. This time he was prepared for her attack. He caught her wrist in a steely grip.
Thrashing against his punishing hold, she tried to pry his fingers away with her free hand. But he gave her wrist a sharp flick, and the brooch flew loose, skittering out of reach.
“Lie still,” he commanded. “Ye’ll only make it worse.”
Worse? What could be worse? Florie wasn’t about to surrender, regardless of the wave of dizziness that assailed her…regardless of the dire stain widening on her best brocade skirts…regardless of the drops of blood, her blood, dripping onto the leaves of the forest floor.
Summoning up one last, desperate burst of power, she reared back her closed fist and swung forward as hard as she could, aiming for his jaw. But he ducked easily out of the way, seizing that hand as well.
“For the love o’ Frigga, lass, lie still!”
The edges of her vision dimmed, darkening as her bones dissolved into submission, and she vaguely wondered who the devil Frigga was.
God have mercy. Maybe the archer had dealt her a mortal wound and she was dying, for she felt as weak as a bairn, with neither the strength nor the will to move.
“Nae, nae, nae, nae, NAE!” he shouted, giving her wrists a reviving shake. “Not that still!” His voice, for all its vehemence, sounded distant, dreamlike. “Stay awake, do ye hear me?”
“Ye go to hell,” she mumbled.
He cursed under his breath, returning her arms to her sides, where they lay as limp and useless as empty sleeves.
“Ach, lass,” he murmured, as if to himself, “what were ye doin’, stealin’ through the thicket like that?”
“Leave me alone.”
“If I leave ye alone, ye’ll bleed to d—” He shook his head. “I’m not leavin’.”
From beneath eyelids growing heavier by the moment, Florie could faintly discern the man’s silhouette as he crouched nearby. He was unbuckling his belt.
Ballocks! Did the monster mean to swive her while she lay helpless?
“Get the hell away from me,” she managed to croak.
He ignored her.
She heard the sound of fabric being shredded. The brute must be tearing her clothes from her. Tears of rage and frustration and anguish welled in her eyes. “Bastard,” she whispered.
“Aye, I know. But ’twill be over in a moment. Lie still.”
“Nae!” she groaned. She wasn’t about to let the lout have his way with her. She tried to curl her weak fingers into lethal fists. “Don’t touch me.”
A dark fog crept in at the sides of her vision like a closing curtain. She fought to keep her eyes open.
“I’ll be swift as I can,” he promised, “but ye have to hold still.” He positioned himself beside her injured leg. “I’ll carry ye to shelter afterward. There’s a priest up the rise from here, not far—”
A priest! That brought her instantly alert. “The church!” she blurted.
Sanctuary! By strength of sheer will, she seized his wrist in one hand with such ferocity that she almost knocked him off his haunches.
“Aye!” she cried, though her command came out on a weak wheeze. “The church… Go… Now…” If she could make it to the church… Pain gripped her again, and she winced, digging her fingers into the leather bracer around his forearm.
“Soon.” He clasped a restraining hand over hers, his fingers sticky with blood.
“Now,” she groaned. Leveraging against his wrist, she began to creep forward, determined to drag herself bodily up the hill if need be.
“Lass, be still! Ye’ll drive the arrow—”
“Sanctuary!” she beseeched him.
“What?”
“Take me…to sanctuary.” Lord Gilbert couldn’t be far away. “They’re comin’,” she mumbled.
“Who?”
She gasped as searing lightning shot up her leg.
He squeezed her hand. “All right. I’ll hurry, lass,” he promised, “but the shaft’s got to come out first.” The cloth he’d torn he now rapidly wadded into his hand. Then he offered her his leather belt. “Hold this in your teeth.”
She turned her head aside. She didn’t want his belt. All she wanted was sanctuary.
But he pulled her jaw down with his thumb anyway, wedging the thick belt between her teeth. “Bite down.”
She scowled. No one told Florie what to do. Then a strong wave of pain washed over her as he pressed the wad of linen against her wound, and she reflexively clamped down.
Blowing out a forceful breath and kneeling above her, the man curved his right hand around the shaft so ’twas braced under his arm. “Ready?”
Nae, she wasn’t ready. But Lord Gilbert was coming. And this knave wouldn’t let her go until the arrow was out. Praying the brute wouldn’t betray her, that he’d keep his word, she ground her teeth into his belt and nodded.
“One…two…”
She fainted before he reached three.
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Desire's Ransom Page 24