I stretched it out so he could see the berries.
“Are you dumb, girl?” he snapped.
Don’t do it.
Don’t rise to him.
He’s goading you.
“Should you be wearing this heathen cloth?”
He reached out and thumbed the edge of my plaid skirt. The touch made my stomach twist with disgust. I stepped back, heat rising in my cheeks, and finally turned to glare at him properly.
That’s when I saw the marking on his jacket—high-ranking.
And behind him, the betrayers.
Scottish men in uniform, standing with their backs straight and their shame buried deep.
Our own, turned against us.
His pale blue eyes narrowed, sliding over me with the oily interest of a man who thought himself untouchable. The shadow of his hat cast half his face in darkness. His curled moustache twitched as he smiled, and the brown hair down his cheeks made him look more wolfhound than man. His breeches were high, the white cross-strap on his chest pristine as bleached bone.
“If you are hungry,” he said, voice dropping to a lewd murmur,
“You can earn a coin on your back.”
Something inside me snapped.
A spark.
Then a blaze.
A fire I’d carried all my life but never let loose.
My hands shook around the basket.
“General, we should go,” one of the men behind him called—uneasy.
A low rumble stirred in my chest.
A vibration deep enough to make my ribs tremble.
I gasped—but the sound burst out of me anyway.
A growl. Raw and furious.
“What the devil?” the general barked, stumbling back, hand flying to his sword.
The sound frightened me as much as it startled him.
I clutched the basket tighter and ran.
I didn’t look back, even when I heard no hooves, no shouts, no pursuit.
The ground was uneven beneath my boots, tussocks grabbing at my skirt, long grass whipping my legs as I fled.
What was that?
