“Nae!” Conall gave a noisy sniff. “I willna! I’ll fight for you! I’ll—”
Evelyn hadn’t noticed Angus returning to the door until a half dozen Buchanan men filled the house. When Angus interrupted Conall’s declarations, his voice was cold.
“Take your leave, MacKerrick, as the lass bade you. I’d nae have you dragged out—Eve’s been through enough at your hand.”
Conall glanced over his shoulder only briefly before turning back to Evelyn, and when his hand went to the leather choker at his neck, she nearly let go of her resolve.
“Eve, please,” he whispered and he glanced at her belly. “I love you both so, you’ll never know…”
Her breath hitched and ’twas all she could do to speak over the screaming pain.
“Go, sir.”
Angus waved at Conall and Lana. “Take them both and throw them out. Stand watch that they doona return.”
Two sets of hands seized Conall and dragged him to his feet backward. And he roared.
“Nae! Eve, nae!” Through the door they dragged him as he shouted, “I’ll come back for you! I swear it! Eve! I love you!”
Angus shut out the sounds of Conall’s desperate cries and turned to Evelyn, looking a score of years aged from only an hour ago.
“They won’t”—she caught her breath—“they won’t harm him, will they?”
“Nae unless he strikes first.” The old man sighed and sat in his chair, rubbing once more at his chest. His gaze was sorrowful. “’Tis what you want? You’re certain, lass?”
“I can’t—“She closed her eyes and tried to will the clenching, searing pain away. Her very teeth ached from the strain. Her heart and her belly fought to be the victor of who would kill her first. “I can’t concern myself with the MacKerrick’s motives. Not now.”
She looked at the old man as the inevitable horror crashed around her.
“My babe is coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Evelyn was burning, freezing in an endless, icy hell. For two days she had fought the pains, the fever, the crushing, delusional fear. The only solace she found was in the brief moments of unconsciousness between surges, when her exhausted body and mind blinked out in desperation.
Buchanan women tended her, a stranger, carefully, lovingly, and well. They spoke quietly to each other in Gaelic, but as the hours dragged on, it didn’t matter to Evelyn that she could not understand their words—the dire tone of their conversations and short, clipped instructions to each other were terrifyingly clear:
Things were not well.
The women had brewed potions, ground herbs, mixed salves; they had held Evelyn’s hands and stroked her brow. But naught had eased the pains, the intense pressure of something determined to part with her body.
Her child. Her and Conall MacKerrick’s child. Born two cycles of the moon too early, with little chance of survival.
Evelyn tried to concentrate on and mimic the actions of the Buchanan women as they pantomimed for her to take long, deep breaths and curl herself over her midsection. And all the while she hated Conall MacKerrick. Not for the physical trauma she was experiencing, but for not loving her or their child enough for the truth. Angus Buchanan’s grand longhouse reeked of blood and sweat and agony and Evelyn knew ’twas unlikely that she or the babe would survive. But if she did and the child died, if she was left alone without Conall, without Alinor, left with no one, Evelyn had decided that she would simply take to the wood one day and never come out.
But it seemed as though she would not have to take that sin upon herself, as the wives’ voices were steadily fading into gray nothing, and Evelyn was so thankful for the peace of it. The wrenching pain swelled into a blanket of humming numbness, and even as she heard the women calling panickedly to her as if from far, far away, Evelyn let her eyes close, let the slow thump of her own heartbeat lull her away into a world of gray lightening to soft white. Quiet, cool, peaceful—
—snow falling at dawn.
She was in the great Caledonian forest once more, but not. Evelyn could see with perfect clarity the rough skin of the trees and smell the fragrant detritus of the forest floor. She could breathe deeply at last, fill her lungs with fresh, clean green, and feel the cool, shivery breeze, but she could not find herself. ’Twas as if her soul had left her body behind to swoop weightless, formless, and free through the shadowy light of the wood.
And ’twas snowing. Millions of starburst snowflakes fell with gentle haste, only to melt at once on the bobbing heads of riotous wildflowers waving in an endless wash around the rocky pyre of the oak tree.
And on that pyre sat Minerva Buchanan, her wizened face peaceful and relaxed.
“Hallow, Eve,” she called with a gentle smile, her sparkling black eyes searching the snow-sprinkled air above her head as if she sensed Evelyn’s presence. “Almost at its end now, is it nae? I’m glad you’ve come.”
Evelyn wanted to answer the old woman. Wanted to ask her so many questions in this peaceful, quiet place that housed no pain, no fear. But she could not seem to find a voice. The wind picked up a bit, driving the snow shower at a pretty angle against the swaying tree trunks.
