by Matie Cole
So, how did that make her feel about her father? She examined herself internally to check to see what emotions she had, but there was nothing. Only numbness. She supposed that her feelings on the situation would hit her later on but for now she needed to get everyone back to the hut to hide out.
“We need to move.” She felt sick as she spoke, but she did not let that stop her. “We need to get out of here. My father might not have sent his men yet, but he will. We can not be here if he does.”
If he was able to of course. She was not totally sure that he would recover from whatever Ethan had done to him, but now she couldn't think of that. She had to focus on saving the people who had treated her well and loved her through everything. She still needed to save Mason, that was her one and only mission until the end. He needed to be at the forefront of her mind at all times.
Alex snapped in to action with her, thank goodness, and they worked as a team to move quickly, to get back to the others, to plan from there.
Chapter 17
“H ere? We are hiding out here?” Mason demanded in a state of panic. His pain was making everything hard for him, every step was absolutely agonizing. The idea of resting for just a moment before having to run again, while carrying Ethan as well crushed him. It simply was not possible. “This does not seem right.”
“Trust Bethany,” Alex reminded him rapidly. “She knows this place better than any of us. You brought her with us, you have followed her this far. She will not let you down, laird MacGregor.”
Alex’s words stuck hard with Mason. Of course, he was going to trust Bethany, he was the one who had told other people to do the same thing. He nodded calmly, glad for the reassurance, and with the help of the other two, they carried the dead body of Ethan in to the hut where everyone else was resting.
Shrieks and gasps of dismay rose up. Everyone had been clinging to hope that Ethan would not get himself hurt, but clearly, he had pushed the English too far, which disappointed everyone. Even when Ethan had been trouble some with his loud and unhelpful opinions, everyone still respected him. He was a great fighter, which was why he had always been Mason’s right hand man, but now it seemed that everything had changed. The future was uncertain, which terrified them all. Jackson, most of all.
“Father, what do we do?” Jackson asked with a nervous tremor. “What now? Ethan is dead...”
Mason opened his mouth to give his son a reply, any kind of reply, it did not matter what he said as long as he inspired his troops somehow, but the pain shot through him like a lightning bolt and all that he could do was yell out in sheer agony instead. He doubled over, bending forwards, until his knees hit the floor.
“Father, what has happened to you?” Jackson cried out, his body going in to shock himself. He had not suffered at the hands of the English for such a long time just to lose his father at the moment he was rescued. “What did they do to you in there? You can not die here. I can not lose you too.”
“I... I...” Mason panted, unable to find anything to say. But nothing was coming out.
“Lie down.” All of a sudden, Bethany’s commanding voice got through to Mason. He heard her over everyone else because she was talking with a knowing tone, like she knew exactly what she was doing. “Stop fighting the pain, Mason. It will not help you. We need to find out what is causing it.”
Mesmerized, Mason did as Bethany commanded. The way that she had managed to keep so clam through everything surprised him and allowed him to take on board what she was saying.
“Now, I am going to work out what has happened to you,” she insisted. “Please, lie as still as you can but let me know if anything that I am doing is causing you any pain. I do not want to make things worse.”
Mason fixed his eyes up on the shining light that was Bethany. He often thought of her as an angel and now he could see that again. She had clearly been sent to his life for a reason, and that was coming to life right now. She was about to save his life, he could feel that fact surging through him.
Bethany was not just a woman that he wanted to love for the rest of his life, she was also his dream come true, the most important person to ever grace him with her presence. And to think, they would not have been able to meet and fall in love if George Windsor had not kidnapped his son. At least the English had done that much for him. It might have been an unintentional consequence, but it was a great one.
It was a real shame that the man had also been responsible for Ethan’s death... unless Mason decided to consider Ethan to blame for it since he was the one who charged head first in to that situation without thinking anything of it, like a fool, breaking all the plans that Mason had set forth...
Mason was sad for Ethan to die, he did not like losing his friend and right-hand man, but he supposed that was the consequence that Ethan was searching for. Surely, he knew that he could not stab his sword through George Windsor and not die. He must have known that would happen.
The only thing that Mason could be grateful for now was that he got Ethan’s body out of there. The man would not find his head up on a spike on George lands which would have destroyed him. Although they probably could not get his body all the way back to your lands. But that he would deal with later. He could not worry about Ethan at the moment, he had done all that he could for the time being.
Right now, he had to get himself healed so that they could all move. Much as this seemed like a much safer option than he thought it would be, he did not want his people to be captured by the English if they started a mass man hunt for them all. Places like this could only remain hidden for so long.
“Can you feel this?” Bethany asked him softly with a caring in her tone. “This is where they got you.”
Mason could feel it, but it was not as agonising as he thought it should be. Probably because he was slipping. His brain was floating away, sliding off to somewhere else and there was not anything that he could do about it. It was as if a cloud of fog had come for him and he could not resist it as much as he wanted to. It was surrounding him, taking him away, forcing his eyes to close the world out...
“Where did you learn to stitch like that?” Alex asked Bethany in shock as he eyed the stitching done to bring his laird back together. She lifted her head off of Mason’s chest where she was straining to listen to the beating of his heart. She needed to ensure that he was still alive at all times. “It looks perfect.”
“I learned stitching from one of the hand maidens when I was a child,” she murmured back. “My father was furious with me because he did not think it something I needed to know. But I wanted to. Of course, at the time, I only wanted to create beautiful stitchings, I did not think about doing it on a human...”
“But I am sure that you have saved his life,” Alex reassured her. “When he wakes up, I am sure that he will be wholly grateful to you for the way that you have preserved him. What should we do with Ethan?”
“You are asking me?” Bethany could not hide her shock. This seemed like madness. “Why?”
“You are the only person here who is not in a state of shock, or complaining about the intensity of their hunger.” Alex offered her a one shouldered shrug. “You are the one leading us here, we need you.”
Bethany was so overwhelmed, half with worry for Mason, and half with the trust that the Scottish clan were putting into her, where they really did not have to. She could not believe it, yet again, they were treating her much better than anyone else in your land had ever done so. It was an emotional moment.
“I think we need to... to cover him up for now,” she blurted out, choking over her sadness. “Mason will have to make a decision about what to do. All we can do for now is wait. Wait for him...”
“You believe he will be alright soon?” Alex leaned in and asked quietly. “He seems to be recovering?”
Bethany could not find the words to answer, so she simply nodded instead. It was far too challenging for her to say anything out loud, because she was afraid that the tears would come for her. Tears
of worry that Mason might not recover after all, tears of what he may feel like when he did recover, tears for the panic that she had not taken care of him as well as she should have done. It was all too much.
She leaned her head back down on to his chest and found the steady rhythm of his heart beating once more. Tears leaked from her eyes, she could not hold them inside any longer, and they made his shirt wet. The love that Bethany had ben feeling for Mason, ever since she met him, it seemed, flowed from her. She hoped that at least some of it was flooding him and letting him know how she felt. Whatever the future held for any of them, she hoped that he was aware of how much he meant to her.
“You keep helping my father,” Jackson commented as he sat beside Bethany. He rested a hand on his father as well, claiming a little piece of him. “You should be the enemy, but you help him.”
“I do not want to be the enemy of him,” Bethany half whispered back. “He might have had me kidnapped, but only to exchange for you. He did not ever mean to harm me, not like my own father did.”
Bethany’s teeth gritted together in anger. She had always considered her father a bad man, but now he was worse than ever before. She was not sure that she even cared what happened to him because he had been nothing but dreadful to everyone. He ruled with fear, in a negative way which created a horrible atmosphere for your people to live within. Mason ruled with caring y respect. Now after seeing another way of life, a new way to do things, she wished that the whole world could be the same way.
She also wished that her sister could be a part of this life, but there was no way to make that happen.
“You care for my father.” Jackson cocked his head to one side as if he were asking a question, but this was not a question because he knew the answer all too well. “Perhaps you even love him.”
Bethany said nothing. She was not going to deny her love for Mason to anyone. Perhaps they had been hiding it for the greater good before, but there was no need for that any longer. There was a chance that Jackson would not like this, particularly since he had just been locked away in her father’s jail, but she could not hide her emotions towards this man. Not with her head on his chest, checking that he was alive.
“I see.” Jackson seemed to accept this easier than Bethany expected. Perhaps this was shock at the moment and his attitude would change later on, but for now she was simply grateful for the ease of his response. “And he loves you too. Of course, he does. He is not a man who trusts easily, yet he has put all of his faith in to you. I hope this does not turn out to be something that he will regret later on.”
“He will not,” Bethany assured Jackson with a weak half smile, it was about all that she could muster up given the current circumstances. “I promise you that Mason will never regret trusting me.”
She hoped and prayed that she could stay true to her word, that they could make some kind of move soon enough, just in case things escalated and the George´s men searched every scrap of the grounds to find this place. Mason needed to wake up, he had to come around soon, so that they could all get back home. As far away from here as possible.
Chapter 18
L ife had become like a dream for Mason, but not a comfortable dream that he wanted to remain in. Everything was unpleasant and awkward, almost as if his consciousness was trying to fight the fog, to remind him that he had something else to fight for. Something more important than his own body right now. But he could not quite recall what it was, what was calling out to him so desperately. Something needed him, screamed out for him, wanted him and he needed to figure out what.
The face of his wife swam in front of his eyes, but she did not look exactly as he remembered her. It was almost as if she had been altered slightly or his memory of her was not exact. She wanted something from him though, something desperate, which Mason instinctively knew was related to their son, the one thing that tied them together in a cruel world which ripped them apart. But what did their son need?
“Jackson!” All of a sudden it hit him like a ton of stone. His son, of course his son needed him. He had just rescued him from the English jail cell and he needed to continue on working for that. He needed to make sure that Ethan had not been killed for no reason and that no one else was hurt...
Panic set in. What if he had slept through everything and everyone else had already been killed? All of his men, Jackson, Bethany... oh no, that was too much for him to bear. But what if he was dead too? What if this was not him resting but he had been murdered and George Windsor now owned yours clan?
Breaths burst and gasped out of him as he shoved himself in to a sitting position. The pain burned at his side but it was not enough to distract him, nor was the intensity of the sweat pouring down his face and in to his eyes. Instead, he focused on the beautiful faces coming in to view. He knew them all, he recognized them fully, which he guessed meant that they were not part of his dreams any longer.
“Jackson.” Delight filled him as he reached across and softly touched his son’s cheek. He was real, and less hurt that Mason initially thought. Perhaps he had cleaned up while he was sleeping.
“I am alright, father.” Jackson held his hand and smiled. “Bethany has taken care of me.”
As Mason met Bethany’s eyes, he could see the tears that remained there. Although there seemed to be a joy there now which had presumably come from him waking up. She did not hesitate, she did not wait until they were in private, she leaned in and kissed him softly. Mason stiffened, expecting there to be cries of horror, but clearly, he had missed out on something while he was out, because there was nothing.
“Are you well enough to move?” she asked as they finally pulled apart. “Because I do not know what has really happened to my father, I can not guarantee that his men are not looking for us. I do not want to put any pressure on you, but I also am worried about the risk to everyone if we remain.”
“Plus, we are all ravenous,” Jackson jumped in. “And we can not hunt while we are here.”
Mason did a mental check of himself before deciding that he could ride through the pain. He had to, to ensure that they all survived and anyway, it seemed like someone had done a good job of tending to him and stitching him up. Someone who seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
“We will go,” he confirmed. “But first, we need to do something with Ethan’s body, I do not believe that we can travel with him. It will be a risky enough journey as it is...”
“We also must ensure that George never comes looking for his daughter,” Alex piped up, shocking Mason, but stunning Bethany to the core. Deep down she had suspected that in a lot of ways she would always be an outsider, but it seemed that Alex had accepted her, along with Mason. “We do not know how extensive the damage to his body was, and how much his temper was inflamed.”
“Yes,” Mason agreed, an idea coming to him. “And I think that we can solve both problems at once.”
“How?” Bethany demanded, while looking at him like he might as well have lost his mind.
“If we allow George to believe that we have killed you, used you for your knowledge and then killed you outside of his castle, then he will not have any reason to come looking for you.”
“But he does not care about me,” she insisted, not wanting this to get any worse than it already was. “He will never come looking for me. It is not worth risking anything else...”
“He may want you for revenge, we do not know,” Mason continued with a smile. “Plus, we still do need to do something with Ethan. I believe that in the right way, we can pass him off as you. We will burn him, leave some of your belongings around him, use mackerel, make sure that there is not enough of him left to identify him as anything other than you. Then you may return with us, a free woman.”
Freedom. It was something that Bethany had wished for her entire life, something that she had always wanted, and Mason would give it to her. She knew that he would do whatever he could to help her live the life that she had always dreamed of. Only now, the dream inc
luded him as well. And he wanted to do it in a way that ensured she would also not have to spend her entire life looking over her shoulder, just waiting for something to happen. George Windsor may not survive the day anyway, but this would help things.
“We should do it,” she eventually concluded. “If that is what everyone else wants as well.”
She wanted to give the Scottish people a choice, if they did not want her with them then she would walk away. She could not push herself on them if it made them unhappy, even if it meant losing Mason.
“We want to help you,” Alex jumped in first, causing rousing agreement from the others. “You have assisted all of us in more ways than we ever could have wanted. We want you with us.”
The biggest surprise was Jackson agreeing the loudest. Mason could not take his eyes off of his son as he declared Bethany one of them. He would have to find out exactly what happened with everyone while he was resting. Everything had clearly shifted in a really positive way. Mason knew that life was going to get better the moment that he got Jackson and everyone away from England, but now he was certain of it.
“Then it is time for us to put this plan in to action,” Mason declared. “And get back home at last.”
The flames flickered brightly. Mason worried that perhaps they were a little too high. He could not go yet though because he needed to ensure that there were no remains that could identify Ethan as male. He was a little sad as he watched his friend burn though, it was a tragic moment. Ethan did not need to be lost.
“I know that he was always terrible to you,” he muttered to Bethany. “But he was a good man blinded by hate. If he had not been blinded by hatred, this would not have happened.”
“I understand,” Bethany replied somberly. She could not ever have hatred for Ethan, she did not know him enough to have that strong an opinion, and in all honesty, this had only taught her that hatred was bad. Negative mostly for the person who felt it because they could not move on. “I am truly sorry that you lost him. But it will not be in vain. I will be sure to live the best life that I can for this sacrifice.”