THE MOMENT JACOB LIFTEDher onto the horse, Elena found her body unwilling to obey even the simplest commands. Her legs felt strange beneath her, unreliable, as though they no longer quite belonged to her, and she clutched at the edge of the saddle with clumsy urgency, half-afraid it might vanish if she loosened her grip. Jacob swung up behind her, his arm coming around her to gather the reins, and the horse surged forward at once. The sudden movement pulled her upright, knocking a thin, ragged breath from her chest.
For several heartbeats, that was all she could manage—holding on, breathing, letting the rhythm of the horse carry her while her mind lagged somewhere behind. The world felt unreal, tilted, as though she were watching herself from a distance: the dark sweep of trees, the wind tearing at her hair, the solid weight of Jacob behind her holding her in place. She could feel the strength of him in every motion—the sure press of his arm, the solid wall of his chest at her back—and still she could not quite accept that this was happening.
Jacob was here.
The thought struck her with the force of something barely credible. She had no clear sense of how he had found her, how he had come upon her in that camp, how he had moved among armed men and brought her out again.
She shuddered, the reaction delayed but fierce, and felt Jacob’s arm tighten instinctively around her, steadying her without a word.
The forest closed around them almost immediately, branches bending overhead in a dark latticework that swallowed what little light the evening still offered. She did not dare look back, though she heard a scattering of distant shouts behind them, voices angry and confused.
She realized that she was shaking. The tremors worked up her arms, into her shoulders. It surprised her how strong it was, how little command she seemed to have over it, but how strange it was that it came now, after the danger had passed.
She had yet to come to terms with the man who had rescued her, who now carried her away from danger—Jacob, whom she’d known forever—with the man who had slain one of the raiders. They were not the same person.
From behind the tree, scrambling belatedly to right herself, stunned by Jacob’s silent approach and almost too-casual command to hush, she had seen very little of the killing, only the aftermath, Jacob driving the man to the ground, and rising, facing her, his face unrecognizable in that instant.
It had been Jacob—unmistakably—but not the Jacob she knew. Not the boy who wandered the ridges, not the man who had strode into the hall of Strathfinnan just last evening and stolen her breath. The expression on his face moments ago had been stripped of everything familiar. In that moment, Jacob’s face had been a mask of pure, raw fury, stripped of humor or restraint or anything she might have called familiar. What staredat her was something she had no name for, something made of instinct and reckoning and brutal certainty.
Once again, Jacob’s arm tensed around her middle, not abruptly, but with quiet purpose, fixing her more securely against him as the destrier stretched into a long, ground-eating stride. A moment later, she felt the brief, solid touch of his cheek against her hair, close enough that she caught his breath, warm and steady despite the pace.
“Ye’re safe now,” he said near her ear, his voice low and even, sounding beautifully like the Jacob she had always known. “I’ve got ye.”
Elena gasped for the relief she felt and laid her hand over his at her waist. She drew in a deep and calming breath. She was safe.
“Where is my father?” she asked. Her voice sounded strange in her own ears, strained and scraped thin by everything that had happened. “He must be coming. My brothers as well. And your father—my God, Jacob, did they lay siege to Strathfinnan?”
“Nae,” he answered gruffly. “Nae that I’m aware of. These are naught but rabble. Thieves and braggarts, nae an army.”
“My mother is safe?”
“I imagine she is. My guess, they were looking for a hostage, meant to ask a ransom. They were never going to hold the castle, but a noble daughter.”
Elena’s mind filled the gap with every rumor she’d ever heard about kidnappings along the border. English. Or miscreants paid by the English. They knew the worth of a chief’s daughter or lord’s lady, or whomever they might get their hand on. Opportunists. The English and their coin-hungry mercenaries knew the value of a woman with the right blood. The right hostage could empty a clan’s coffers faster than any harsh winter or the cost of battle.
She shook her head to divest herself of the imagery associated with that.
“But where is my father? Why are ye alone?”
“Yer da was still on the hunt with Lord Hamilton and the others—I wasnae going to take the time to find him and risk losing yer trail.”
He’d simply acted, had come to her rescue, one against many, while her own betrothed had crumpled in fear while she was taken. Thomas had been at her side when the raiders burst from the trees, and the memory of his response even now threatened to blister her insides with anger and shame.
She turned this over in her mind, the stark contrast between Jacob’s response and Thomas’s, knowing Jacob could have chosen caution, could have run for help or trusted the men on the wall to act in time. But he had done none of that. He had acted, and in acting had made her feel both more valuable than she had ever felt in her life.
Presently, Jacob's chest radiated warmth against her back, his arm a steady lifeline around her middle. Something in the way he held her, something about this closeness, stirred a peculiar sense of recognition, which was odd since her mind knew they had never shared such proximity before.
Jacob leaned in slightly, pressing further against her back, forcing her to go low over the destrier’s neck as they passed beneath a low branch.
“We need to keep moving until they give up pursuit,” he said close to her ear. “We’re safe for the moment, but we’re nae beyond their reach yet.”
Elena nodded, and then wondered, “Shouldn’t we be going west?” she asked when the mare angled slightly to the right, the direction pulling them deeper into unfamiliar country. “Back to Strathfinnan?”
His chin grazed the top of her head as he shook his head. “They’ll expect us to make for it. If we ride that way, we’ll draw them straight behind us. We’ll keep east for now—the forest will give us cover. When they lose the trail, we’ll angle back.”
She absorbed his explanation in silence, supposing it made sense, and certainly not willing to question any decision made by Jacob. In the space of half an hour, Jacob had shown her more of himself than she had learned in all the years she had known him, about his decisiveness, his competence under pressure, his willingness to act alone—without fear—and the ruthless efficiency with which he did so.
A chill crept up her arms, and she was sorry the early afternoon had been warm enough that she’d had no need of a cloak.
