Warrior Untamed (16 page)

Once, twice, the lightning flashed from one side of the sky across to the other before one large, jagged bolt arced down like a massive, fiery spear toward the very spot where she and the man who held her stood.

The air around her crackled and the hair on her body stood on end. Next to her, Hamish screamed and released his hold on her. Freed from his hands, Brie flung herself away from him to land flat on her face, her arms covering her head. Instinctively, she curled her body to present the smallest target.

Lightning always goes for the trees,
her father had warned her as a child. And here she was, right in the blighted middle of a forest.

She had no time to think or plan, only to cower. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. The stench of burning flesh was sharp and acrid, stinging its way into her nostrils, but she kept her head down and covered, refusing to look up. Silence hung in the little glen until Hall shattered it.

“Bridget!”

His hands fastened on her arms and he lifted her to her feet, crushing her against his chest.

“What happened?” She could hardly force the words past her lips. The storm had come out of nowhere, more potent than any she’d ever experienced.

“Are you unharmed?” he whispered, his breath warm against her forehead. “Have they injured you?”

“They injured nothing except my pride,” she answered honestly. She had been careless, and being captured had been her punishment for that carelessness.

She suspected hers hadn’t been the only punishment meted out in this glen. It was as if the gods themselves had seen to Hamish’s punishment. Though Hall’s body blocked her view, she heard no sounds coming from where Torquil’s guardsman had stood only moments before.

She could see his headless companion, though.

“Do you always take their heads in battle?” It had been much the same scene before.

“If I can,” he acknowledged, his heart pounding like a battle drum beneath her ear. “Ensures I only have to battle them once.”

Hall drew back from her, his big hands rising to caress either side of her face, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks as he stared into her eyes.

“What have they done to you?”

When he spoke, his warm breath tickled the loose hair around her face, distracting her from any thoughts other than of being so close to him.

His finger trailed over her forehead and down her cheek. His arms held her so protectively, his gaze focused so intensely, capturing her own, she could do nothing but breathe in the essence of the man. He filled her senses to the exclusion of everything else.

The tingle of expectation rippled through her body and she leaned in toward him without conscious thought of movement, anticipating his lips once more closing over hers.

He didn’t disappoint.

His kiss was exactly as she remembered, exactly as she’d re-created it in her dreams a thousand times. Warm, strong, demanding.

If the gods chose to freeze time at this moment, she could happily spend eternity as she was right now, ensconced in Hall’s embrace, his lips fixed upon her own.

She closed her eyes, melting into the sensual haze of the moment, and almost missed his whisper when he placed his hands on her upper arms and pulled back from her.

“Armored with her people’s symbols of protection and destiny.”

Her eyes flew open when he shook her, shattering into a million pieces the wonderful, fluffy haze that had cocooned her only seconds before.

“I should have realized what the Faerie was telling me. It wasn’t these men at all. You did this to yourself. You marked up your face in this manner, didn’t you?”

Brie blinked several times, trying to focus her eyes and her thoughts. Marked up her face?

Her face! She’d all but forgotten. Little wonder he drew away from her in revulsion.

There was nothing to be gained in pointing out that in actuality it was Orabilis who’d done the marking. It had been her choice, her decision.

“It was necessary. These are the symbols of—”

“I know well enough what they are,” he cut in, his voice harsh with emotion. “More like symbols of impulsive and irresponsible behavior.”

Like hell they were! If he thought she was going to stand here and listen to him lecture her for something she’d done in the course of trying to save his sorry ass, he was more than mistaken.

Besides, it wasn’t his concern. What she did was
her own business, not his. He had his life to attend to, and she had hers.

“It’s of no matter now,” she said, pulling her arms from his grip and backing away. “What’s done is done. I’m pleased to see the witch’s cures worked upon you. And now that yer well, and yer here, we’re only wasting time when we speak of any of this. If we’re to find the sword and the scrolls, we’d best be on our way.”

“We?” Hall’s face colored a deep, blotchy red and he actually sputtered as if he’d momentarily forgotten how to speak. “You’re going no farther in this hunt. I’ve worried my last over you. Have you no concept, no realization, of how much danger you’ve repeatedly put yourself in?”

He sounded enough like her brother to be his twin. And the last thing she needed in her life was two of Jamesy. Did neither of them listen to the words that came out of their mouths?

Did he honestly expect her to believe that she was somehow at more risk in this quest than he? Ridiculous men! All of them thought they were somehow more impervious to danger than she.

“No farther, you say? What would you have of me, then, O wise one? Am I to wait here in this clearing for you to return once you’d completed yer task? It’s no been such a safe place so far, now, has it? No safe at all, between getting captured and whatever
that
was.”

She flicked her hand toward the smoking, blackened lump lying next to the trees where she’d stood a short time ago and wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to forestall the shivers that assaulted her. That lump was all that remained of Hamish. Had she not moved as quickly as she had, it might well have been all that was left of her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Hall began.

“No? You’ve something safer in mind, have you? Am I to return to the witch, then? Riding through Torquil’s territory again, tempting fate once more?”

“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ah, then I can only suppose you’d have me go back to Castle MacGahan. Journeying on my own, is it? With who knows how many more of Torquil’s men scouring the countryside, looking to find what we should be after ourselves, right this very minute? Am I so much safer doing that than riding along with you?”

They glared at one another across the emotion-charged distance separating them.

“You’re impossible,” he said at last, turning from her and stalking back toward his horse. “Impossible!”

As perfect a word to describe her situation as if she’d chosen it herself.

Impossible.

As impossible as the dream she realized she still harbored deep in her heart that somehow, in spite of his wealth and her poverty, something might work
out between them. She was a fool for not having accepted the truth when she’d first learned that he was a laird, with his own land holdings and responsibilities.

If she’d hoped to overcome the obstacle of their different stations in life, the new one she’d created on her own was the absolute end to any dream she might have clung to for a long, romantic life with Hall O’Donar.

Lairds did not take penniless women as their wives. And they most certainly did not take to wife any woman whose face and body was adorned with the ancient blue markings that were now a part of who she was.

“Impossible,” she echoed in a whisper, heading toward her own horse at the edge of the clearing.

She might not be destined for the life she’d dreamed of, but in whatever life she had, she vowed that she would do her best to be bold and in control. Unlike the girl who had left Castle MacGahan with no thought but revenge in her heart, Brie was a new woman now. Determined. Strong.

Destiny might have snatched her dreams away from her, but not even Destiny could force her to live the timid life of an ordinary woman.

H
E SHOULD HAVE
taken his brother’s advice. He should have trusted his instincts.

Mathew had felt uneasy and suspicious every time Dobbie had suggested they take a different path, but in spite of every warning Hugo had shared about the dangers of trusting people, he’d allowed himself to trust Dobbie anyway. He had
wanted
to trust the boy. Had wanted Dobbie to need his friendship as much as he had needed Dobbie’s.

And just look where trusting another person had gotten him. Lost, that’s where. Lost and penniless and without any means to accomplish his goals.

Mathew clutched his Dream Guardian to his chest and scanned the campsite once more in the vain hope that Dobbie might have left behind some small belonging.

Nothing.

Dobbie had disappeared sometime in the night, taking everything with him. Everything but the plaid upon which Mathew slept and the sword he clutched in his arms.

At least he still had his Dream Guardian.

What would he do now? What
could
he do?

His dreams of wealth were dashed. Without the scrolls to sell to the MacLeod laird, there was nothing to be gained by continuing his journey to Dunvegan.

He had no horse, no food, no money.

“But all is not lost,” he announced defiantly to the forest, a small spark of optimism undaunted.

He still had a head on his shoulders, unlike his brother, Hugo. He still had his wits about him. And he still had this wonderful sword that kept his nightmares at bay and made him all but invincible.

He didn’t for one moment doubt its supreme power. It had taken that great warrior to his knees with only the lightest touch.

A wave of guilt swept over him and he struggled to push it away. He had never intended to hurt anyone. It wasn’t his fault the big man had gotten too close to him. And once the damage had been done, there was nothing to be gained in staying by the warrior’s side. Had the big man survived the wound, there was still the other attacker. Running away had been his only real option. Even Dobbie had agreed upon that.

Not that Dobbie Caskie was any measure of right and wrong. Dobbie, after all, had robbed him blind, disappearing with what few possessions he had left.

“All is not lost,” Mathew repeated stubbornly.

He would no longer have the advantage of wealth he’d counted on, but that was no reason to abandon the rest of his plans.

He could still locate the Tinklers and reunite with his cousin, Eleyne. They could return to their home, where, if necessary, he would challenge his uncle for what was rightfully his. With his Dream Guardian at his side, he had no doubt that he would win any challenge, even one against a man as ruthless and powerful as his uncle.

After a stop at the water’s edge to wash the sleep from his face, Mathew wrapped his cloak tightly around him and headed out to find the trail he and Dobbie had abandoned after they’d been attacked.

Find the trail and double back north. That was his best bet now. Somewhere along the way, along one of the well-traveled roads, he hoped to cross paths with the Tinklers and Eleyne.

B
RIDGET GALLOPED AHEAD
of Hall, her bow raised, her long hair flying in the wind.

He drew his horse to a halt to watch. She cut across the flat stretch of open land, building speed as she went. Riding like the wildling she was, she controlled her mount without use of her hands. Like a natural-born warrior, she let loose her arrow and lifted her arms high in the air in an instinctively joyous celebration, as if she knew her shot would meet its mark even before it left her string.

It had.

Tonight they would feast on fresh rabbit.

She slid down from her mount and ran to retrieve her catch. Uninhibited, wild, untamed—the descriptions pounded at Hall’s thoughts, each of them more fitting for the woman he watched than the one before.

If he were to design his perfect woman, everything about Bridget was what he would wish for in a life partner.

Too bad his life was destined to be spent alone.

“You see?” she asked as she rode up next to him, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of her catch. “I told you we’d have better than dry bread and oats for our meal this night. Our deal stands. I caught it; you clean it and cook it.”

On second thought, perhaps she wasn’t perfect. But damn close.

He accepted the carcass without comment and draped it over the back of his saddle. A deal was a deal.

“Impressive marksmanship,” he said, acknowledging her extraordinary abilities.

Bridget shrugged off the compliment, but a deep pink colored her cheeks as she guided her horse next to his.

“Is it possible we err in following the others toward Dunvegan, do you think?” she asked.

Hall had considered that very question more than once since they’d first found the tracks he was sure had been left behind by the party from Castle MacGahan.

“I only bring it up because it feels fair odd to me that we’ve found no sign of Mathew and his young companion for the past day. After following their tracks to the glen where we met, we’ve since found no sign of them on the trails. No sign of anything but the tracks of our own men.”

“You raise a good point,” he agreed. “Tomorrow we’ll begin again with a fresh eye to refocus our
efforts. We’ll scour the area until we find some sign of the ones we need to find.”

Another half hour of travel and Hall located what he sought, a safe place for them to set up their camp for the night.

“If I’m to clean your little beastie here, we’d best make camp now, before it’s too dark for me to deal with him properly.”

“A good spot,” she murmured appreciatively, pulling ahead of him to investigate his choice. “Our backs to the rocks and running water beyond. I approve.”

Just as she had a gift for the bow and arrow, one of his talents lay in his ability to locate a good campsite. After so many years spent living off the land, he’d learned to seek his comfort where he could.