Her Wild Highlander

by Emma Prince

  Oui, she’d definitely managed to shock him. His jaw worked for a long moment, but he couldn’t seem to form a response.

  At last he let a long breath go. “I dinnae like speaking about my past,” he began haltingly.

  She waited while he searched for more words.

  “I wasnae always so guarded,” he continued at last, shooting her a wary glance. “But when ye’ve lost everything ye hold dear—”

  He cut off abruptly, but this time, it wasn’t because he was at a loss for words. He’d gone rigid in his saddle, his head snapping around and his gaze scanning the surrounding woods.

  Trepidation clawed up Vivienne’s throat. “What is—”

  His hand flew up, silencing her. He reached for the hilt of his longsword, which stuck out from one of his saddlebags. As the metal rasped against its leather sheath, he whispered, “Stay close, and do as I—”

  But before he could finish, all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The thwack of a bowstring was all the warning Kieran had.

  An arrow flew past Vivienne’s head, narrowly missing her. The mare she rode spooked, whinnying in distress and rearing on its hind legs. Vivienne screamed, desperately fighting to keep her seat in the saddle.

  Blessedly, Kieran’s enormous stallion proved steadier than the mare, even as he dug his heels into the animal’s flanks and yanked on the reins to bring him closer to Vivienne’s rearing horse.

  Another arrow flew by, this time just wide of him.

  “Kieran!” Vivienne cried, her voice high and frightened.

  Bloody cowards! His sword was no use against an enemy that lurked behind the cover of the trees, firing on an unarmed woman. He could curse them later, though. Vivienne was mere seconds from being thrown to the ground—if she wasn’t struck by an arrow first.

  He rammed his sword back into its sheath, urging his horse still closer to hers. Just as she began to slip from the saddle, his arm snaked around her waist and snatched her up. He dragged her before him onto his own saddle, then wheeled his horse around so that his back was to the arrow fire, shielding Vivienne.

  Suddenly, pain exploded in his right shoulder. An arrow hit him with such force that he jerked forward hard enough to knock Vivienne over his horse’s neck, nearly unseating her. Thankfully, she somehow managed to hold on, even as he bellowed in pain.

  His roar was apparently the last straw for her skittish mare, who flattened her ears and prepared to bolt into the trees. Kieran had the presence of mind to lean over and snatch the horse’s reins, though, preventing her from dashing away.

  Pain radiated down his injured sword arm. Thank God he wasn’t still holding his blade, for he likely would have dropped it when he’d been shot. As it was, he might as well be weaponless, for there was no way he could wield a sword with an arrow protruding from his shoulder.

  He dared a glance behind him, where the arrow fire had come from. The underbrush rustled and four men slowly emerged, swords drawn.

  Every fiber in Kieran’s body screamed at him to protect Vivienne at all costs. But with his injured arm growing heavy and stiff, he didn’t stand a chance against the men.

  Just then, the archer stepped from the trees, taking aim with a slow smile right at Kieran. Kieran’s big frame protected Vivienne, but if the archer managed to fell him, she would be completely unguarded.

  Calling up all his strength, he gripped the mare’s reins in his good hand and slung his injured arm around Vivienne. He dug his heels into his stallion’s flanks, sending the powerful animal surging into the trees.

  Their attackers shouted in surprise as they tore off through the woods. Kieran hunched around Vivienne’s small form in front of him, using his body as a shield. Though it might be easier to shift her back into her own saddle and let her control the mare, there was no way in hell he would expose her to more arrow fire.

  Just as he’d expected, an arrow sailed past them, but thankfully it missed both him and their horses.

  With a groan of agony, he dragged his injured arm from around Vivienne’s waist and fumbled for the stallion’s reins. In the heat of the attack, it had been enough to simply spur the animal into a gallop and let him run unguided, but now Kieran needed to see them to safety.

  Once he had the stallion under control, he wrapped the mare’s reins around his saddle’s pommel. Then he switched the stallion’s reins into his good hand, letting his injured arm hang at his side.

  There was no telling how long it would take their attackers to mount and set after them, or how quickly they would pick up their trail. Their only hope was to lose them in the thick forest and then outrun them.

  Gritting his teeth against the burning pain in his shoulder, Kieran spurred his horse faster.

  * * * *

  Time blurred and bent nightmarishly as they plunged through the darkening woods. Vivienne only knew that it must have been several hours since they’d been set upon, for the muted gray light of midday had slid into blue twilight.

  Kieran had driven his powerful stallion to the brink of exhaustion before slowing him to a walk. Even without a rider, her spritely mare had barely been able to keep up. Now both horses breathed hard, no doubt grateful for some rest.

  Kieran gave himself no such respite, though. He searched the surrounding trees relentlessly with his gaze, his body pulled taut behind her.

  For her part, now that the initial terror had begun to wear off, cold shock was setting in. She’d long ago lost feeling in her legs from being wedged before Kieran astride his enormous horse. Her head felt filled with stones, heavy and dull.

  When she began tipping forward over the animal’s neck, her limbs like pudding from fatigue and numbness, Kieran muttered a curse and reined the horses to a halt.

  With a grunt, he swung himself to the ground. It wasn’t until he stood before her, reaching for her with only one hand to help her down, that she saw the shaft of the arrow protruding from his shoulder.

  “Mon Dieu,” she breathed. “I did not realize. You are injured.”

  “Aye,” he said tightly. He tried to give her a weak smile, but because his features were drawn with pain, it was more of a grimace.

  She slid from the horse’s back, her knees nearly buckling under her weight. Her legs wobbled precariously, but she managed to stay upright. Heart in her throat, she stared wide-eyed at the arrow shaft.

  “W-what should I do? I could…I could remove the arrow, and try to—”

  “Nay,” he cut in. “There isnae time. I’ll no’ have us dawdling here like lambs waiting for the slaughter while those men hunt us down.”

  “But you cannot leave it in,” she said. She hated the way her voice was rising toward panic, but she couldn’t stop it. They were alone in the middle of a night-dark wood, being chased by men who meant to kill them. Kieran was injured, and she had no idea how to help him.

  “We’ll have to,” he replied grimly. “If we ride like hell and manage to lose those men, we can be someplace safe in two days’ time. It will have to wait until then.”

  She began shaking her head, her chest squeezing with fear, but Kieran caught her chin in his good hand and forced her to meet his gaze.

  “Look at me, Vivienne,” he ordered, scowling down at her. “If ye can face the Queen of France and earn a place as one of her ladies, if ye can meet the King of Scotland without losing yer composure, and hell, if ye can square off with me even when I’m growling and huffing like an enraged bear, ye can damn well do this, too.”

  She swallowed hard, blinking away her frightened tears. He was right. It was time to put all her years of practice being strong into action. She gave him a curt nod, lifting her chin. “Oui.”

  “There’s my steel-spined lass,” he said, his voice warm. “Now, I do need ye to do something.”

  He bent and reached for the dagger he carried in his boot, hissing a curse of pain as he straightened. “I need ye to cut off the arrow shaft,” he said, handing her the dagger.


  She took the knife with trembling fingers, but she willed herself to maintain a white-knuckled grasp on her composure.

  “Get as close to my skin as possible. Aye, that’s it,” he said as she positioned the blade. “Now hold the arrow steady with one hand and saw through it with the dagger.”

  He spouted a colorful stream of curses when she closed her hand around the arrow and began working the blade along it. By the time the shaft snapped free, Kieran was sagged over, his brow beaded with sweat.

  “Good lass,” he mumbled, his hand shaking with pain as he took back his dagger and re-sheathed it in his boot. “Now, do something else for me. Untie yer mare’s reins from my pommel.”

  She blinked in confusion. “But should I not ride her? Surely we could go faster if—”

  “Nay,” he growled, straightening. “I’ll no’ have ye exposed and vulnerable atop yer own horse. I nearly lost ye earlier, and I cannae—” He dragged a hand over his face, muttering a curse into his palm. “Ye are safer riding with me,” he said after a moment. “Besides, the mare willnae be able to keep up this pace for another two days, even without ye riding her.”

  He was right. Though finely formed, the animal clearly wasn’t meant for such hard trekking. “Then…then what will you do with her?”

  He moved to the animal’s side, unfastening Vivienne’s saddlebags and hoisting them over his own behind the stallion’s saddle.

  “We’ll send her on her way. Her tracks will confuse our attackers, forcing them to split, double back, or choose only one path to follow. And dinnae fear for her. She’s far too bonny a beast to go more than a day without being noticed. Whoever finds her will think he’s the luckiest man alive to gain such an animal.”

  Vivienne reluctantly did as Kieran bid, unlooping the mare’s reins from the pommel. She patted the mare’s neck, then stepped back as Kieran lightly swatted her haunch to send her off into the dark trees.

  He turned to her, fixing her with a searching gaze. “Can ye continue riding through the night?”

  “Oui,” she replied, fighting to keep her voice steady even as a fresh wave of fear hit her.

  Even if she truly could stay upright in the saddle through the long, dark night, what if Kieran couldn’t? In the diffuse light of the moon behind the clouds, his skin was pale and his face pulled taut with pain.

  With a boost from his good arm, she swung into the saddle. He dragged himself up behind her, growling in discomfort as he did. He took up the reins, settling his injured arm onto his thigh, then urged the horse into motion.

  As they rode, the hours stretched. With each passing jolt of the horse’s stride, Kieran’s body grew more and more rigid with pain behind her. At last, she took the reins and looped his good arm around her waist to keep him from toppling out of the saddle.

  And when he leaned against her, agony having wrung the strength from his body, she willed herself to bear his weight, all the while praying that they would reach safety in time.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  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 low
ered 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.