Highland Healer (31 page)

Ranald lay where she’d left him. The guard she’d posted still stood silently over him, frowning at anyone, including Aileana, who ventured too near to his charge. But she knew he would not interfere with her.

She dropped to her knees. Ranald lay deathly still on the cold, hard ground. She placed her hands on his chest. His breathing was shallow, and she could barely sense his heartbeat. A chill skittered through her.

Ranald had very little time. Death hovered so near that she feared attempting to heal him. The risk she contemplated exceeded any she’d taken so far. And she didn’t know where to start. Damn him for forcing her away when she could have helped him! Stymied, she fought to find calm amidst her anger and despair at his foolishness and her poor judgement. She had sensed how badly he was injured. She should not have left his side!

The noise of the camp, the rumble of male voices, the brightening daylight, all faded away as she reached into Ranald’s body to assess his most urgent needs. So much blood spilled where there should be none that his organs were bathed in it. His lungs were filling with it, and the fluid in his chest kept his heart from beating fully. That was a blessing in disguise, because with each beat, his internal wounds allowed even more of his life’s blood to seep into his body where it didn’t belong, and where it was doing harm.

Frantic now, she tried to heal the damaged organs that were leaking the most blood. She heard him groan and softly sigh, “No.” But she kept on knitting tissue, draining fluids, trying to give his heart room to beat and his lungs space to breathe.

Her head was spinning, and she knew she could not continue at this pace, or even continue at all, much longer. But she still had so much to do. Ranald still lay dying, and what she had repaired so far was not enough to save him. She was making many things worse before she could make them better. Tears ran down her cheeks as she worked.

She dared not impose the healing sleep on him; she feared it would make him too quiet in his body and his spirit would give up and leave him. He still fought her, but he’d ceased moaning “no” as his condition worsened. Instead, his fingers twitched, or his head fell slowly to one side, then the other, with each touch of her fingers. If he could not speak, he still tried to make his wishes known. But she would not let him quit. She could not let him die.

“Toran won,” she whispered, fighting her growing exhaustion, fighting to make him want to live. “Colbridge is dead. We’re free.”

Ranald didn’t respond. There was no movement left in him, save for his shallow breathing and faint heartbeat.

“Do you hear me, Ranald? You’re free. You can go where ever you wish.” Aileana’s view of Ranald grew spotted and grayed as she swayed above him. So much blood…too much…

Rough hands pulled her up, breaking her contact with Ranald.

“No!” she shouted, and flew into frenzy, fighting with the last dregs of her strength to return to her brother. But the hands that held her would not let her go, no matter how she fought. Recognition penetrated her panic. Toran. Toran held her. She knew his strength, his scent, his arms. His voice. It came to her finally that he was murmuring to her.

“Nay, Aileana. Ranald is gone. Ye did the best ye could. He’s gone, Aileana. It’s over.”

“No!” she wailed. “Put me down. He still lives…I can save him.”

“Nay, lass, ye canna. He breathes nay more.”

Aileana fought to free herself, but Toran’s grip held her up like an iron band away from the life she was trying to save.

“No, no, no. He lives! Let me go to him.”

“Aileana, I canna. Ye’ll kill yerself trying to bring back a dead man. He’s gone. Colbridge killed him. There’s nothing ye can do for him now.”

Aileana stilled in Toran’s arms and took a deep breath of the chill morning air, trying to clear the fog in her head and regain some vigor. Fighting Toran was sapping the last of her strength. Her nose filled with the sharp scent of Toran’s sweat, the blood on her hands from Ranald, and the pitch of the nearby pines. None of them did much to revive her. When this was over, she knew she’d pay a price in her own recovery. It would be long and difficult, but she could not let Ranald go without a fight.

She knew she was too weak to be able to summon her Voice. She could not order Toran to release her. But if she feigned acceptance, perhaps he’d let her go. So she sighed and put her head on his shoulder. Toran eased his grip and held her gently, rubbing her back rather than restraining her.

And she bolted from his grasp and fell across Ranald. Sensing, touching, there a beat of his heart, a small movement of his chest. She tried to work faster, harder, deeper, her senses open wide, her Talent surging into his still body. But her strength was leaving her…too soon. Her Healing was not working! And just as quickly as she started, Toran’s hands gripped her arms and pulled her up before she could pour all of herself into saving Ranald.

“Let him go, lass,” Toran whispered as she all but swooned in his arms, tears running down her face in hopeless, angry torents. “Ye did all ye could. He was too far gone. He wouldna want ye to take harm trying to save him.” Toran’s exhaustion made his voice gruff, yet he held Aileana in his arms as if he would never let her go.

Indeed, he would not. When Donal tried to take her, Toran only grasped her more tightly to his chest. “Leave her be,” he told Donal sharply. “See to dismantling this camp. Provision any of the men who want to head south, and find places for the rest. I’ll take Aileana back to the Aerie where she can recover.”

****

“No!” The strength of Aileana’s shout startled Toran into releasing her. She backed away from him, pale and shaking but eyes blazing. “No, I will not go with you. You killed him…I could have saved him.”

“Nay, lass.”

“Aye,” she snarled, backing up, her gaze darting to Ranald as she moved, looking crazed. “You pulled me from him when I could have helped him. You killed him.”

Toran stared, unmoving. This helpless rage revealed a facet of Aileana he had never seen before. He wasn’t sure what to say, what to do, to calm her. Where had she found the strength for this sudden fury? A moment ago, she had been all but limp in his arms. Now she seemed intent on blaming him for the evil that Colbridge had done. Her eyes were wild. Blood, Ranald’s blood, streaked her dress and the hands she held up to ward him off.

“Lass,” he cajoled, “have done. ’Tis over and ye need to go home to the Aerie and rest.”

“Home? To the Aerie?”

“Aye, lass. I’ll care for ye there. No’ here in this rough camp.”

“This rough camp…is my home. It has been for two years.” She was shaking her head and backing away from him even while she shivered from cold and exhaustion. Toran took a step toward her.

“Stop!” she cried and backed up a few more paces. “Do not follow me.”

“Lass,” he began, but she shook her head again. Donal gripped his arm then.

“Let her be, Lathan,” Donal advised quietly. “The lass is out of her mind over her kin.”

“Nay,” Toran answered, not daring to look away from Aileana. She’d stopped backing up and stood, shaking, staring at him with a wounded expression that nearly ripped his heart from his chest. “She’s worn to the bone and doesna ken what she’s doing or saying.”

“I can hear you,” Aileana spat with more anger than he thought her capable of, “and I know exactly what I’m doing and saying.”

“Then ye ken I speak sense,” Toran told her, signaling Donal to move away. “What ye tried to do was brave, lass, but it would have killed ye. I could no’ allow that.”

“Allow?” Her back suddenly straightened and her frown grew more fierce. Toran had the feeling he was going to regret using that word. But he had spoken the truth and he had done what was needful to save her life.

“I couldna allow ye to sacrifice yerself, Aileana. I need ye. The clan needs ye.”

“And Ranald needed me,” she snarled, marching up to stand toe-to-toe with him, fury plain in the grim lines of her face even as her body shook with her anger and fatigue. “But you didn’t trust me. Or you believed Colbridge’s lies and thought that I was intent on saving a man I loved.”

“Nay, Aileana…”

“Yes, you did. You knew we were never lovers…” her voice faltered and she swallowed. Toran was certain images of their lovemaking were flashing before her eyes, and their handfasting. “But he loved me. He was the last of my kin. I cared…enough to want to help him. No more than that. But it would have been enough.”

Tears started afresh down her cheeks. It was all Toran could do not to lift his fingers and wipe the wetness from her skin, but he kenned that she would bat his hands away, which would be bad enough, or run from him, which would be worse. “And for that, you kept me from him. You let him die.” Her words fell like stones at his feet. Her recriminations clawed at him. She believed them, that jealousy had guided his actions, not concern for her welfare.

“Aileana, I love ye, and ye love me. I couldna let ye die along with him, no’ when I could prevent it. It is my place to protect ye.”

“No,” she said, backing away from him again. Toran wanted to reach out, but her cold expression stopped his hand. “That won’t be a problem for you any longer.”

Ice suddenly slid down Toran’s back, from his neck to his buttocks. “What do ye mean, lass?”

“You made a promise to me.”

“A promise?” Panic surged like beating wings in his belly. He knew the promise she meant. One he’d never wanted to make. One he damned himself now for ever uttering.

“You promised me that once Colbridge was dead, or gone, I could leave.”

“If ye truly wished to…”

“Yes. And I do. I wish to leave. I’ll go south with the men. Back to my village. Maybe some of the people I knew are still there. They’ll take me in…”

“Lass,” Toran choked, and couldn’t believe his voice could break on a single word. But it had, and it had not affected Aileana at all. She still stared at him, determination replacing the fury that had inhabited her features only moments before. “Ye canna.”

“Can’t I? What? You won’t allow it? After you promised? You’ll hold me prisoner, then, while you let the rest of these men, who injured or killed some of yours—you’ll let them leave. And force me to stay? What? As your healer? As your slave? What will it be, Toran?”

“Nay,” Toran acknowleged, feeling like the only word left to him to utter was nay. Nay, he couldn’t believe what she was saying to him. Nay, he couldn’t let her leave. He loved her and needed her by his side. “Nay,” he repeated and sighed. “I willna force ye.”

“No, you can’t. You may be a big, bad warrior, Laird Lathan, but you made me a promise. You can’t go back on your word in front of all these men,” she said, her hands sweeping in a wide gesture to encompass the camp and the men milling around in it, “or they won’t trust your word to them, will they? You want them to leave peacefully, don’t you? You must let me leave peacefully, too.”

“I dinna wish to force ye, Aileana. I wish for ye to stay with me. Ye made a promise, too, Aileana. We both did. Have ye forgotten so soon?”

“No, Toran. I haven’t. But I cannot stay. You still don’t trust my judgement, my Talent. You don’t trust me.”

“Please…Aileana…get some rest. Dinna leave. At least dinna leave without talking to me again.”

“No. I will not speak to you again. I cannot forgive what you did here today. I cannot.”

With that, she turned on her heel and started to walk away from him into the camp.

Toran stood, helpless to restrain her, without the words to call her back. Without the words to gain her forgiveness. Without the words to convince her that his actions had been for her benefit, not because of some petty jealousy or wounded pride. She said she could not forgive him. She was walking away from him, her shoulders straight, her braid a dark line down her back, her bloody fists clenched.

Then she disappeared into the chaos of the camp. He was alone, the only woman who cared about him gone from his life in pain and heartbreak and tears…just like his mother, and his childhood love, Fia. Now Aileana. Was he destined to be alone? Spurned or abandoned by the women who should have loved him? Toran’s gaze swept the camp, but he barely noted the activity taking place, the Lathan clansmen who had come from the Aerie, and the MacAnalens who were guesting with them, except as movement and chaos. He couldn’t focus on any single part of it, or any one person.

He felt isolated and dazed. Donal and the rest of his men had left him to deal with Aileana while they took care of the camp. He was vulnerable to any of Colbridge’s men who might still hold a grudge. But he could not move, could not think.

He could only stand there, lost in the memory of when she’d told him that she loved him. She’d meant it, he was certain she had. How could she walk away from him after that? After all they’d shared? All they’d promised to each other? How could she leave the comfort and security of the Aerie, and a life with a man who loved her. For this rough camp? Or worse, for the dangers of the trail and the slim possibility of finding anything like the home she’d been taken from two years before?

Toran grimaced at the moisture gathering in his eyes.

Donal must have been right: she was spent, and out of her mind. So was he. She needed rest and food and drink, just as she had after healing Jamie. Perhaps even more than she had then. She needed care and comfort, not this crazy path she planned to take. She needed to come home to the Aerie, where he could care for her, love her, live his life with her.

But nay, she could not forgive him. Toran shook his head and blinked away the tears. She must. She was his wife. He would find her, cajole her, convince her. He could not live without her. He would not let her leave him, not like this.

****

Aileana kept her gaze straight ahead as she walked away from Toran. She dared look neither right nor left or she might turn back to look at him. And if she did, she’d be lost. All her anger, all her grief, would be wasted if she ran back to him. No, she must leave him. He did not trust her Talent, and she could not trust him to let her use it as she needed. Because of him, a good man, the last of her kin, and the closest thing she had to a friend in the last two years lay dead.