“Hold still.” He plucked a drowned bee from her tangled mess of hair then helped her climb up the sharp incline. She ached from the cold but her foot hurt the most. She limped a step and turned. Elena’s shift was completely sodden and clung to her body. She plucked at it so the stained white linen wouldn’t stick to her taut nipples. She crossed her arms over her chest and groaned inside. Freezing, practically naked, and without her bow or dagger, she was at the mercy of the stranger who could kill with a touch. She shivered.
“Are you…?” she started and stopped, her breath still coming in shallow pants. “Are you…a demon?”
He stepped forward before she could retreat and lifted her, his arm under her legs. He strode briskly back toward the clearing he’d found her in. “I do not know.”
“How can you not know if you are a demon?”
“How can ye not know if ye can swim?”
She frowned at him, but he’d looked away. He set her on a log near the wet remains of her tiny campfire, knelt before her feet, and raised the sore one to inspect the stings. Taking a flat piece of bark, he scraped over the bumps to remove the needlelike stingers that might still be embedded after their swim, and set it back down gently. He balanced on the balls of his feet and examined the other. When he lifted his gaze to her neck his frown intensified. She touched the sides that must be bruised.
His jaw looked tight and a lethal glaze hardened his eyes. She leaned backward away from him, and he breathed deeply. His blue eyes connected with hers and softened.
“I am sorry for frightening ye.” He rubbed a hand down his face, leaving a look of vulnerability that made Elena want to assure him that all was well when it clearly was not. She kept her lips tightly closed and shivered. He stood to retrieve a wool blanket from his horse. Amazing. The steed had remained in the woods right where he’d left him. Why hadn’t her horse possessed the same loyalty?
The man lowered the dry blanket around her shoulders. His rugged dress marked him as a Highlander and the large muscles, displayed in lustful detail through the wet linen shirt, marked him as a warrior. Just following the thick curves of his arms made her heart pound, surely from appropriate fear. Dark, damp hair stuck out, cropped, a fitting frame for his sinfully handsome face. With looks to muddle a woman’s mind, he must surely be a demon. But would a demon save her from bees and warm her with his own blanket? Would a demon apologize?
“I live with a power that is like a curse.” His eyes scanned the woods around them.
“Your hands and eyes glowed red when you killed that man.” Elena glanced to the pile of clothes by the far tree.
The Highlander nodded. “Dark emotions, anger, fear, hatred—they bring it out of me. I have learned to control it…mostly.”
Mostly?
The man brought a wad of leaves out of his bag, bee balm from the look of it. He stuck some between his white teeth and chewed. She watched wide-eyed as he applied the mashed leaves to the stings on her foot. He tugged a bit at the ragged edge of her shift. “May I?”
She nodded and he tore a length and wrapped it around her foot to hold the poultice in place. His hands raked his hair, making it stand about in damp disarray that seemed incredibly endearing, making him more handsome than any of the polished, powerful men visiting Grimsthorpe Castle.
“You are cursed? Who cursed you? Was it a witch?” Curses were just in tales to frighten children. What an insane conversation to be having in the middle of the forest. But what she’d witnessed certainly wasn’t natural.
His tortured face relaxed, though he kept a frown. “I was born with the curse, and my mother does not like to be called a witch.” Did he jest? He looked back at her swelling foot. “Ye have nothing to fear from me.”
Well, she doubted that. There was much to fear in her life as her sorry state showed clearly. Although for someone who had just reduced a man to ash, the warrior’s touch was very gentle as he applied a bit of balm on one sting on her arm.
“I have nothing for the bruise on yer throat.” He continued to examine the stings on her foot.
“It will fade.”
The rush of rain picked up, hitting the wet leaves with such force that they pelted the ground in heavy drops, but the water rolled off the woolen blanket draped around her.
“What happened to yer gown?” He moved about the clearing with calm, slow gestures as if she were a spooked animal. Well, that would rightly describe her. A spooked girl without a weapon or food or a mount or most of her dress.
“It has been a long journey.” She yanked his blanket tighter around her. “A disastrous journey.”
He raised one eyebrow and looked down at the blackened bare toes of her good foot. “And one made without shoes.”
“I started the journey with them.”
When she didn’t elaborate he pulled some dry peat from his bag and began to build a new fire. He glanced up at the increasing rain, but spoke to her.
“Ye are traveling alone.”
The less strangers knew of her, the better, especially a stranger who could be a demon, though he was seeming less like one by the moment. But then again she’d never met a demon. She also didn’t need word of an Englishwoman traveling alone to reach back to Lincolnshire. She’d put over a fortnight behind her, but only God knew if English soldiers would search this far north for her. Her mind whirled and she breathed deeply to press the panic aside. Perhaps this Highlander could help her. He seemed the honorable sort.
“I am traveling to Edinburgh.” Lord, she hoped her instincts were better than her survival skills.
“Who is in Edinburgh that would draw ye away from yer country?”
Mere curiosity or was he trying to ferret out her secrets? “I have a cousin there.” Or rather the queen dowager Katherine Parr had an illegitimate nephew. Lady Suffolk had sent word to him about Elena right after she told Elena, quite directly, that she couldn’t accompany her household to Germany. Now, this false cousin, Roger Lyngfield, was Elena’s only hope.
“Foolish to travel without escort or mount.” He tossed her small sack of coins back to her.
Foolish not to be running away screaming. But she didn’t say anything. Her foot throbbed.
“There are thieves everywhere preying on the helpless.” He pulled some oat cakes from his pouch and handed her one.
Foolish? Perhaps. Unlucky? Definitely. Helpless? She frowned. She might be a woman, but she was far from helpless, otherwise she wouldn’t have survived these last weeks.
“I have a mount,” she defended. “And a bow.”
“A mount?” He raised an eyebrow and glanced around.
“Hidden.” Actually lost, but he didn’t need to know that she hadn’t tied a good knot and the horse had wandered off during the night. “And I am not helpless. I shot that man.” Her defense steadied her, but she swallowed hard as she again took in the man’s rumpled pile of clothing.
“They would have climbed up to get ye once ye ran out of arrows, or that Geoff would have just shot ye down.”
Just the thought of those lewd men with their taunts made her blood ice over and her stomach churn. She’d barely managed to scurry up the tree when they tromped into her camp. Elena wrapped her arms around herself, saving the oatcake for later when she couldn’t recall the smell of ale and unwashed bodies. God help me. She was nearly out of wits after dodging men and beasts for three long weeks of cold, hunger, and worry.
It was truly a blessing that she wasn’t given to hysterics. Stalwart breeding, her surrogate father, Thomas Seymour, used to say. Sadness welled in her chest when she thought about his laughing eyes. He’d been executed. Lady Suffolk said he was a traitor with his own foolish ambitions, but to Elena he’d been the closest she’d had to a family.
A cold raindrop struck Elena’s forehead and dripped down to her nose, where she wiped it away. I hate rain! She’d catch the ague by the time she reached the Scottish capital. If she made it.
The warrior nodded at the wolf, his companion, and
called him by some name in the guttural Scots language. The large beast trotted up beside him, its tongue hanging out as he panted. He was like a tamed dog, except large and lethal. Who traveled with a wolf? A demon who could kill with a touch, that’s who.
The man’s sword slid into the scabbard strapped across his back, the sound ringing out against the patter on the leaves. “Do ye have no other clothes?”
“No. I have not been to a town to purchase more. I do have coins.” She held up her little bag, her frown fierce.
“’Tis not safe to go about so unclothed.”
She couldn’t contain the little huff that escaped her and narrowed eyes at him. “Do you think I don’t know that? I may be a woman, a tired, wet, mess of a woman, but I am not an idiot. I’m doing the best I can to stay alive.” Tears pressed against the back of her eyes and she looked up so they wouldn’t leak.
He paused, studying her. “I have another shirt ye could use. I am Searc Munro. What is yer name?”
“I…I am Elena.” She’d never given her family name before. She didn’t even really have one.
He bowed slightly, then tilted his head to the side. “Do ye know that yer hair is shorter on one side than the other?”
She pulled the blanket up higher around her head so he couldn’t see the mess that had once been her glorious red-gold hair. “Yes.” Under the blanket Elena’s hand wound around the short strand on one side where it stopped just below her shoulder. The other side reached her waist.
He dipped his head, trying to catch her eyes. “Did someone cut it?”
She nodded and blinked past the increasing rain. “Yes.”
Searc Munro’s face hardened. “Who cut yer hair, lass?”
Elena pulled the blanket up the back of her head, holding it over her face like the overhang of a cave. “I did.”
…
The woman before Searc was more mud than lass, but her form through the thin scrap of clothing would catch any man’s eye. Despite her fear, she spoke with much spirit. Even with her Sasannach accent, she reminded him more of a strong Highland lass than an Englishwoman. She seemed to teeter between panic and annoyance. He’d rather tip the balance to the later.
“Why would ye cut yer hair?” He raised one eyebrow. “Ye are not an idiot,” he said, referring to her earlier outburst, “but perhaps ye are daft.”
“What?” She glanced up, the muted light played in her greenish eyes.
“Daft. Not altogether sane. Did spirits tell ye to cut one side of yer hair? My da’s mother saw spirits. She was quite daft.”
The woman’s brow wrinkled, her pink lips puckered half in shock and half in annoyance. He felt her fear ebb a bit. ’Twas like coaxing a barn cat out to get some milk.
“I know what it means, and I am not daft.” Her pert nose tipped upward for the briefest moment before she looked back down at her folded hands. “I had sap in my hair, a whole lot of it. I had no choice but to cut it.”
“Sap from a tree?” He leaned against a tall birch.
“Where else would sap come from?” She sank deeper into the blanket over her head. Only her face was visible. A perfect oval, slender nose, large eyes, and lips. How soft would they be if he kissed them?
She sighed. “I slept against a tree one night, not knowing the sap was running down it. By morning I was rather stuck.”
“Stuck?” He stifled his laugh, “to a tree?”
“Aye, my gown ripped while pulling myself off the blasted trunk. And it was so stuck in my hair that I had to saw part of it off with my blade.”
“So that’s how ye lost yer gown?” Searc retrieved all of his weapons, wiping them in the wet ferns.
“Mostly,” she murmured.
He much preferred her being ravished by an oak to a scoundrel. He remembered the singed edges of the back of her shift. “There was also a fire?”
“I believe I mentioned that it has been a long journey.”
He looked out into the forest, spying a few medium width trees. “Ye’ve not had an easy time of it.”
A dark laugh whispered out of her. “I’m thinking of changing my name to Job.”
He retrieved his hatchet and a leather strap off Dearg. “A coach and inns along the journey would have made things easier.”
“Oh my!” she snapped with obvious sarcasm. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe I’m an idiot and daft.” She draped the blanket completely over her face. Aye, the lass had reached her limit.
The increasing rain had become a roar through the leaves. His kilt slapped against his calves as he strode to one of the pine trees. His hatchet tucked in his belt, he lashed the strap around and grabbed the trunk. The thick bark fell away from under his hands. In an effortless hand-over-hand motion, he climbed partway up the pine. He pulled his hatchet free and chopped, the blade slicing halfway through in one hit. The life force he’d stolen from the two men made the task nearly effortless. He pulled the ax free, glanced down where the lass sat out of the way, and pushed the top of the tree over. The mighty pine cracked, the top heading for the leaf-littered ground.
Elena scrambled up, but she was still safely out of range of the trees. “What are you doing?”
“Making a shelter since ye don’t sound like ye wish to sit in the rain.” Searc jumped down, his kilt flying up. Elena gasped, but it couldn’t be helped. Searc repeated the process with a second tree standing nearby, its top half falling over the bent apex of the first, creating a frame of tree trunks. He hadn’t even broken a sweat and jumped back to the springy ground. At least this blasted magic had its uses.
Ferns sat about in large patches. He ripped handfuls and scattered them against the outside of the logs, part way up the sides, stuffing them together in and out of the frame. Elena watched silently as he retrieved a second wool blanket and tossed it over the pointed top where the splintered bend of the trees held it up like a tent.
“It may be less sturdy than an inn, but it probably has less bugs in the bed.”
“How did you do that?” Elena leaned against a tree, her weight still on only one foot.
Would she let him help her? He moved forward as she took a step. Her immediate grimace made him scoop her up. She didn’t protest and he maneuvered her through the doorway.
“’Tis the strength of that thief and the one who fled. It will fade in a day’s time, and I will have the normal strength of a Highlander again.” He set her down along one wall and tucked the blanket back up around her.
“You can take a person’s strength with their life?” Her words were soft, her attention on his face rather than the shelter. “It makes you stronger?”
“Actually, it gives me much more than another’s strength, it multiplies the strength when it transfers to me.” She didn’t say anything, just stared. He’d had his whole life to get used to his unnatural abilities and it still sounded like a tall tale to his own ears. She surely wouldn’t have believed him if she hadn’t witnessed it.
He threw their satchels inside. “Stay in here. I will find some dry wood.” Though in this sodden world, it might prove impossible.
He jogged into the woods. The cool rain and wind helped him breathe fully against the tightness in his chest. The trees swayed in the storm around him, as if they mourned his unchanging fate. Would he always be the cursed monster? Lord, no. He let the rain wash his face and turned to dig under some fallen trees to find something that might burn. The lass would be getting cold.
They ate on opposite sides of a small fire, the smoke rising out through a hole at the top. The lass stared at the flames as she chewed, her eyelids drooping in long blinks. Finally she lay on her side, her back to him and the fire. Just when he thought she was asleep she rolled half way over, her eyes finding his.
“Thank you,” she whispered across the fire and turned back around.
…
“You are a warrior.” Elena watched him shake out his dry shirt in the low light that filtered into the tent. The rain had stopped overnight and they had wo
ken with the dawn. “How is it you have no scars?” Her gaze glided over his broad, perfectly smooth back and followed the sinewy lines of his shoulders down his sculpted arms. She was a maid and knew little about large, naked men, and Searc Munro made her flush. Even without the stolen strength, he could probably lift boulders. His biceps were large, probably from hours of swinging his heavy sword. The only mark on him snaked around his forearm like the thin tail of a dragon. “Except for that mark. Is it from birth?”
“Aye.”
Her gaze slid across his chest. “You are able to wield a sword as if it were as easy as breathing. You are brave enough to come to a lady’s defense. Yet not a single scar to mar your skin. Do you just use your magic in battle?”
“Nay, I do not.” His jaw looked hard as if he clenched his teeth. “My mother is a healer.”
“The one who doesn’t wish to be called a witch?”
He stopped, his eyes narrowing as if he wished to smile, yet he didn’t. “I have but one, aye.” He brought her more bee balm so she could change her poultice. “She’s cared for every slice of my skin so that no scars remain. She steals the proof of my battle tales despite my complaints.”
“Would you like me to maim you here where she can’t heal you? I am quite good with a bow.”
A small grin finally broke through, and her breath caught at the transformation. How could Searc Munro be a demon? Humor and brightness lit his beautiful blue eyes.
“I will keep yer offer in mind, Elena.” Her name rolled with his brogue across his tongue, making it sound exotic. “But we have food to find today and possibly an inn for tonight, so I’m afraid I need my health.”
“We?” she snapped. Her newly wrapped foot felt better but still looked swollen. The sting on her arm itched. Walking today would certainly hurt, but she hadn’t planned on accompanying him.
“I will not leave ye out in the forest where thieves and bees can harm ye.” Humor still marked his voice.
“I will not be a burden.” She clasped her hands, twisting them. “You could leave me here to rest for another day. I will continue on tomorrow.” Her voice had grown soft as she contemplated her rash plan. What if the thieves returned? How could she escape with an injured foot? It had been horribly difficult to climb the tree with two good feet.
Highland Hearts 03 - Crimson Heart Page 3