He pulled his blade free and dropped it. The clatter echoed through the corridor.
Then he turned.
Kristen slid down the wall, her legs giving out. He crossed the space between them in two strides and dropped to his knees in front of her.
“Kristen,” he murmured. “Are ye hurt?”
She touched her throat with bloodied fingers. “It isnae deep,” she said, though her voice shook.Tears brimmed and spilled over, smearing the dirt on her cheeks.
Neil lifted his hands to her face, then paused, hovering as if the slightest touch might break her. “I have ye,” he said softly. “Do ye hear me? Ye have nothing to fear now.”
A sound escaped her, thin and fractured. Not quite a sob, and not quite a laugh.
“Me whole world,” she whispered, her eyes drifting to Lachlan’s lifeless body. “Me whole world is falling apart.”
Neil had no answer. He could only kneel on the damp floor, with blood drying on his arm and on her skin, and stare at her.
Something shifted between them at that moment.
He reached out, slow and careful, and put a gentle hand on her head. She leaned into him, the smallest weight, as if he were merely a wall against her back.
For the first time since his return, Neil had no certainty or control to hold on to. All he could do now was face the wreckage of what his family had done.
What hisbrotherhad done.
30
Kristen barely remembered climbing up the stairs. One moment, she was in the dungeons, Lachlan’s blood on the floor, Neil’s sword still wet; the next, she was in her chamber with her back to the door and her hands shaking so hard she could not turn the lock. She pushed until the wood clicked, then dragged herself to the bed and sat on the edge.
She bent forward, her fingers digging into the blankets. The sobs came without mercy. It felt as if someone had grabbed her heart and twisted it until it could not find its rhythm.
She tried to breathe to no avail. Maggie paced by the fireplace, her paws tapping the stone floor and her tail hanging low. She came close and nosed at her knee, but Kristen did not seem to feel it.
Images struck like hail during a heavy storm. Images she had not been able to get out of her head since the attack at the village square.
She saw her father with a bottle.Neil turning away from her after the wedding ceremony.A knife going into the belly of the children’s mother while a crowd watched.Lachlan saying she was nothing but a tool.
Another sob tore through her. She wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked until the worst of the tremors passed. She tried to stand, to wash, to move, buther body refused to cooperate.
The door opened. Soft. Careful. Maggie crossed the room, gave an unhappy huff, then looked from Neil to Kristen as if she would scold them both.
“Kristen,” Neil said.
Kristen rubbed a hand over her face, and her palm came away damp. “Are ye here to see if I am still in one piece?”She hated that her voice sounded raw, and she hated that he heard it.
He crossed the room and stopped a pace away, as if drawing closer might hurt her.“Are ye hurt?”
His eyes dropped to the thin red line at her throat. She felt the sting then and touched it with two fingers, surprised to find the skin raised.
“Only everywhere,” she whispered.
He swallowed. His jaw clenched, then relaxed. “I never meant for any of this to happen. If I had ken?—”
“I ken,” she interrupted, and her certainty startled them both.
She lifted her head. Tears blurred her vision, but her gaze was steady.
“I ken now that ye have endured cruelty all yer life. Yer faither. The bandits. Alex. Lachlan. Even me at times, when I threw yer hurt back at ye because I was afraid.”
