The Renegade's Heart (30 page)

Onward, for so long as they could manage
it.

* * *

Isabella was both exhausted and terrified.
She had never run as far as Ravensmuir and she was not certain she
could make it, not at the pace Murdoch set. And yet, she feared to
move any more slowly. She kept glancing back, haunted that the
Elphine Queen hunted Murdoch on this night.

What would happen if she caught them? Little
good, Isabella was certain.

And what if they did make distant Ravensmuir?
Did they dare enter the crumbled keep without a light? Did they
dare to strike a flint?

Where were Darg and the spriggans who had
said they would take the relics to Ravensmuir? Isabella had been
certain she would have caught a glimpse of them by now, but there
was no sign of the spriggans or the relics. Had they deceived her?
Was she leading Murdoch to his doom?

Neither of them had the breath to talk. They
simply ran.

Murdoch offered his hand to help Isabella
over a low wall of field stones that marked the boundary between
Kinfairlie’s fields and those of Ravensmuir. Isabella held fast to
his cold fingers as they continued, alternatively blowing on them
and rubbing them. She could give him heat, she realized, but it
never lasted. It was like kindling a fire with damp fuel. It could
be coaxed to sputter and burn but not for the duration – only for
so long as she fixed all of her attention upon the task.

Isabella could hear the sea more clearly as
they drew closer to Ravensmuir. The stars and the moon were
obscured now, which both aided them and hampered them. They were
less likely to be seen but also could not see their way as readily.
The ground, at least, had fewer stones and no furrows. This part of
Ravensmuir’s land had never been tilled. Isabella thought they made
better progress.

Even in ruin, Ravensmuir was imposing.

She glanced back to find another black cloud
mustering behind them. It obliterated the stars behind and above
Kinfairlie. Murdoch’s steps faltered beside her and Isabella
assumed he thought that the Elphine Queen was coming again. She
intended to encourage him, but the words died on her lips.

Murdoch’s face had turned as pale as snow.
His eyes had gone dark. No longer the brilliant blue they once had
been, they seemed to be filled with inky shadows.

And he was cold, colder than the grave.

The rain came slanting down as she stared at
him, driving through her cloak with icy cold fingers.

“Do you see them?” Murdoch whispered, as
unlike his usual confident self as a man might be. “Do you see the
dead come to gather me?”

“No!” Isabella said with force. “Murdoch, you
cannot die!” Even as she spoke, she looked around them for a
solution. It was too far to Ravensmuir and whatever shelter it
might offer. It could take them two more hours to reach that ruin,
and Murdoch needed warmth and shelter immediately.

That was when she saw the cottage. Isabella
could not imagine how she had overlooked it before. It might not
have been there at all, then suddenly was conjured from the air
because of her desire.

A thin tendril of smoke rose from its roof,
swept away by that wind as soon as it cleared the thatch. The door
was open, spilling a welcome golden light into the night. Perhaps
the door had been closed. Perhaps that had been why she had
overlooked it. It was built low and snug to the ground, the entire
cottage nestled into a hollow.

Isabella decided its owner wished for his
abode to be overlooked.

She might have hesitated to trouble one so
intent upon ensuring his solitude, but the figure of a man appeared
in the doorway. He beckoned to her, and as Murdoch began to
shudder, Isabella knew she had no choice but to accept the
invitation.

She pulled Murdoch to the low door and was
startled to find the sound of music emanating from the tiny
cottage. The man on the threshold wore a brown hooded cape of
roughly spun cloth. His beard was long and dark, and his eyes were
fathomless pools. Isabella stifled a shiver and looked past his
shoulder, wanting to avoid his intense gaze. Murdoch murmured
something that made no sense to her and struggled against her as if
he would remain in the storm.

The man touched Murdoch’s brow with his
fingertips. Murdoch shuddered and stilled, his head hanging.

“You are a healer?” Isabella asked, awed by
the power of his touch.

The man smiled. “Of a kind. Please, take your
shelter here.”

Isabella halted on the threshold, struck by a
sense that all was not right. There was no one in the cabin,
although the music played ceaselessly. At her confusion, the man
drew back and waved a hand.

The music stopped. There was only the welcome
crackle of the fire in the grate and the heat it generated. Still,
she felt an uneasy sense that things were not what they seemed.

Or was she simply too tired?

“I must leave on this night,” the man said,
his voice so deep and rich that it seemed it could not emanate
truly from him. “I beg you to make use of the fire and my humble
abode.”

Before Isabella could thank him for such
kindness, he wrapped his cloak around himself and stepped past them
into the night. The wind swirled around him, making his cloak
flutter.

Then he was gone, swallowed by the night and
the storm.

Murdoch released a shaking breath. With his
cold fingers, he fumbled at his belt, even as he fell to his knees.
Isabella thought he wanted his sword, although she could not
imagine why. She made to step across the threshold and tug him
inside by force.

“No!” Murdoch said with force, his eyes
flashing, and flung her on to the ground beside him. Before
Isabella could protest, he pulled a dagger from his belt, one with
an elaborate design on its silver hilt. He jammed the blade into
the dirt of the threshold, showing a disregard for the weapon that
astonished Isabella.

She was more astonished when the cottage
seemed to waver slightly, like a reflection in a pond.

“Now, you can enter,” Murdoch whispered,
sounding as if he had crawled a hundred miles.

“Should we?”

“We have little choice. At least we will be
able to leave.”

Murdoch sagged then, as if this effort had
spent him completely. Isabella put her arm around him and supported
his weight as she got him out of the storm. She urged him toward
the fire and he collapsed, boneless with exhaustion.

Or something else.

Isabella closed the door behind them, not
securing it in case the man returned. She cast off her own cold and
wet cloak, then bent to remove Murdoch’s cloak. It was heavy with
water and the hem crusted with ice.

“He was one of them.” Murdoch spoke so
quietly that Isabella could barely hear the words. “He would trap
us in his turn.” So, the man was Fae. Isabella thought of his
fathomless eyes and was glad she had not looked more closely.
Murdoch lifted a hand and his eyes opened slightly, revealing a
glimmer of blue. He smiled a little and touched her cheek. “Not
you, too. Not my Isabella.”

“They will not claim either of us,” Isabella
vowed, although she was not at all certain that was possible. It
was her hope, and perhaps that was sufficient.

Murdoch’s eyes closed then and he breathed
heavily. He lay on his back before the fire, looking for all the
world as if he had left this realm. Isabella leaned close and
listened, the faint sound of his breath enough to encourage
her.

She had to get him dry and warm.

Isabella dragged the pallet from the far side
of the cottage in front of the fire, and rolled Murdoch on to it.
He moved limply and she was struck that his skin had become even
colder. His hair was thoroughly wet and clung to his head, icicles
caught in its length. She used the bottom of her skirt to rub his
hair dry and get most of the moisture out of it, leaving him
tousled and alluring. The pallor had faded, too, leaving him
looking more hale again.

She reached out a fingertip and traced the
line of his mouth, remembering the surety of his kiss.

She could not let him die.

But still, Isabella had never seen a man
naked, and she certainly had never removed the garb of a man she
found so dangerously attractive. His garments were soaked, though,
and his survival could rely upon warmth.

Isabella took a deep breath, then began to
undress Murdoch.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

Murdoch’s boots had pools of water in the
soles and she poured them out, setting them before the fire to dry.
The leather would be stiff in the morning, but there was little she
could do about that. Their cloaks were already stretched out to
dry.

She paused and surveyed him again, reminding
herself that this was no time for maidenly shyness.

Isabella tugged off Murdoch’s gloves, pausing
to study the whorling lines curling around his hand. She untied the
lace at the cuff of his chemise and pushed up the sleeve, catching
her breath at the extent of the blue mark. It continued, swirling
around his forearm and past the elbow. The tendril of blue she had
seen at Kinfairlie was the end of this design, where it had begun
to wind around his throat. A quick check revealed that his right
arm was nearly the same, the marks only slightly less
extensive.

She unfastened his belt, expecting him to
stir when she removed his purse and scabbard, but he did not. She
grasped the hem of his tabard and pulled it up over his chest,
noting that it was far less clean than once it had been.

She sniffed it and smelled blood. What blood?
Was he this pale because he had been injured? Did he yet bleed? The
possibility filled her with purpose. Isabella put the tabard to one
side, intending to wash it once she had found and tended his wound.
She loosened the tie of his chemise at the neck.

The sight of his bare throat made her resolve
flutter. She recalled the feel of his embrace, and reminded herself
to act. Her mouth dry at the boldness of what she did, Isabella
tugged his shirt up from the waist and hauled it over her head.

Then she looked, telling herself she was
seeking a wound. Murdoch lay half-naked before her and the strength
of his body was beautiful. He was all muscled power, lean and
strong. He did not have a single scar, let alone a bleeding wound –
she even rolled him over to check.

The lack of a wound was not what astonished
Isabella.

It was not even Murdoch’s nudity.

It was extent of the winding blue lines that
covered not just his arms, but his shoulders and his torso. It
looked for all the world like a tracery of dark vines that encased
his body.

And his skin was pale beneath the marks.
Where they had not marred his skin as yet, the flesh looked tanned
and healthy, but beneath their tracery, it was grey and pale. She
could not evade the sense that the lines grew like a bramble or a
thicket, one converging upon his chest.

Surrounding and barricading his heart.

Isabella caressed his chest tentatively,
wondering whether the marks hurt, her fingertip following one of
those lines. Murdoch suddenly caught his breath. His eyes flew open
and his gaze locked with hers. She laid her hand flat on his chest,
her palm over the steady beat of his heart, and felt the heat grow
there.

“Isabella,” he whispered, his voice husky.
There was awe in his eyes and they became more blue as she watched.
Color touched his face, driving out the pale hue even behind the
blue lines. Isabella dared to hope that she truly could heal him of
this malady.

What would she have to give to see him
completely warmed? Isabella stared into his eyes and thought she
knew.

And she was prepared to give it.

When Murdoch reached for her, Isabella could
not have denied him to save her very soul.

* * *

Isabella might have been an angel of mercy,
come to save him.

Murdoch had been surrounded by a fog filled
with whispering shadows of ghosts and Fae. They had closed around
him after the dark cloud’s assault, as he and Isabella had
struggled to reach safety. He had been both relieved and terrified
by the sight of the cottage, knowing they needed refuge but fearing
the one who offered it – and what the price might be. He had
already been weakened, the ice gathering in his veins as he felt
himself fade.

At least he had had the power to drive the
blade into the threshold. If they survived, they would be able to
leave.

If they did not consume any morsel, they
would be able to leave.

He had to warn Isabella, but the fog had
closed around him as soon as he had entered the cottage. He feared
it would only clear when he was in the Elphine Queen’s captivity.
Murdoch was cold, colder than he might have believed possible, and
he was certain that his every exhaled breath cast snow into the
air.

He jumped at what he thought was that Fae
queen’s touch on his bare skin, but the warmth that spread from
that light caress told him otherwise.

Isabella.

Murdoch opened his eyes to find his stalwart
maiden leaning over him, concern in her expression. She was fine
and she was fearless. Tendrils of her hair hung damply around her
face, the golden light cast by the fire gilding her to a vision of
perfection. Her lips parted in surprise and her eyes widened that
he awakened.

When she smiled with relief, Murdoch could
not resist her. He reached for her, sliding his hands into her
hair, drawing her closer. She smiled more broadly and leaned
against him, claiming his lips with a kiss that sent heat surging
through him.

Murdoch caught her closer and drank of her
kiss, loving how she fell against him in a tumble of softness. She
framed his face with her hands, capturing him between the heat of
her palms, her lips and tongue kindling that fire within him to a
blaze. Murdoch felt warmth return to his body, and heard the
thunder of his own pulse in his ears.