After a moment, he decided there was no immediate threat. The raiders might still be in pursuit, but they were not close. Still, he could afford to let his guard soften.
Beside him, Elena leaned back until her shoulder brushed his arm.
“Is it safe enough to sleep?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“For now, aye. I’ll stay awake.”
He felt her exhale slowly, her body loosening again from the tight coil of fear. In the faint starlight that filtered through the branches, her features looked softer, less stricken, though shadows still clung beneath her eyes.
She nodded and closed her eyes, accepting his word without question. Perhaps she had no alternative, yet the unguarded trust in her gesture caught him off guard. This was not the Elena MacTavish he remembered—the girl who challenged so many statements, who stood her ground with flashing eyes when cornered. Exhaustion had peeled away those defenses, revealing something softer beneath. As she settled against the rock behind them, he felt an unfamiliar warmth spread beneath his ribs, a sensation he pushed aside for more pressing concerns.
Night deepened around them. The temperature dropped, carrying the crisp scent of damp earth and new growth. Elena, seeking warmth even in sleep, drifted closer until her headrested more fully against his shoulder. He remained still, letting her settle, though he kept one hand lightly on the hilt of his dagger, ready for any sound that broke the forest’s steady and predictable hum.
He surveyed the darkness ahead. They had outrun their pursuers for now, but raiders were tireless when coin was at stake. He would need to choose their next move carefully, considering when to move and which direction to take. He was unfamiliar with the land so far south. He would rely on instinct and the stars until he could orient them with the nearest river or ridge.
His destrier shifted behind them, lowering herself to the ground with a weary grunt, which Jacob perceived as a good thing. She needed to recover some strength before they moved again.
Elena’s breath evened, her head growing heavier against him. Her hair brushed his jaw at one point and he was reminded how small she was. His brow furrowed, considering how unprepared she had been for what the world had thrown at her today.
He would protect her because she was here, in his arms, and no one else was close enough to do it.
But that was not the whole of it, and Jacob knew it.
Even as he sat there listening to the forest breathe around them, he understood that what had driven him forward to her rescue had little to do with obligation. It had to do with her. With the quiet familiarity of her presence, with memories that stretched far back in time, with a regard that had taken root long possibly before he had named it as anything at all.
He had told himself those feelings belonged to another time, worn away by distance and years on campaign, and certainly they had no place now with Elena about to be promised to another man.
He shifted slightly, careful not to wake her, as a breeze shifted through the pines, stirring the branches overhead. Jacob sharpened his attention again, listening for anything out of place. But the woods returned nothing more than the soft murmur of night, a distant owl, and Elena’s quiet breathing beside him.
JACOB GUIDED HIS BAY MARE DOWNthe last winding curveof the worn trail beneath Wolvesly, each careful hoof-fall stirring a fine dust of sand before the slope finally gave onto a broad, pale arc of beach beneath the sheer cliffs.
The tide lay halfway out, leaving a glossy mirror of wet sand laced with tiny tide pools, and the distant sea stretched to the horizon, its muted roar carried softly on a breeze scented with salt and warmed by the late sun.
Far from the base of the dunes, on the flat stretch of beach, a lone figure lay flat on her back. Jacob’s chest tightened—he feared she might be hurt—and he reined in hard, halting the mare with a quiet scrape. He swung nearly half out of the saddle before the stillness shifted: one knee curved upward, an arm rising briefly and then melting back into the sand. He stopped, heart pounding, realizing her repose was chosen, not forced.
Elena MacTavish lay with her eyes shut, her skirts hitched carelessly above her shins, her dark hair fanned around her like spilled ink on canvas.
Jacob remained mounted, one boot loose in its stirrup, reins slack in his hand. From the horse’s back she looked small against the open brightness, unguarded in a way that gave pause to his breath.
She did not notice him and Jacob hesitated, torn between announcing himself or quietly withdrawing.
Slowly, he nudged the horse forward.
Elena opened her eyes when his long shadow fell over her.
Startled, she tilted her head and fixed her gaze on him, upside-down. For a moment, neither spoke.
The wind drifted through her hair and teased the edge of his cloak.
She surveyed Jacob from her inverted vantage, studying the lines of his silhouette against the cloudless sky. It was not the scrutiny of a girl caught in mischief, nor the frank, assessing gaze he had known previously from her, when she was much younger, when she had let everything be seen.
Jacob stared back. The sun sharpened her image, laying bare every detail. Her black hair, unruly and stubborn, had escaped its braid entirely, fanning out beneath her head in a wild tangle that caught flecks of sand and salt. Strands curled and the sun sparked their edges until they gleamed almost blue. Beneath a heavy fringe of lashes, her eyes shone a startling sea green, sharp with life despite her languid pose. The sunlight did not flatter her, exactly; it revealed her. The wind had drawn a bright flush across the bridge of her nose and the tips of her cheekbones, and a scatter of new freckles had surfaced since the last time Jacob had truly looked at her.
She looked, for an instant, like a child again—muddy, untidy, and stubbornly herself. But she was clearly not a child now, not at sixteen, not with those clever watchful eyes, with her nearly defiant silence.
He did not dismount. He stayed where he was, looking down at her, the warmth of the sun on the back of his neck, unnoticed until now. He was struck by how different she seemed here, free from walls and formal eyes, her beauty plain in honest daylight instead of arranged for ceremony. He cleared his throat, uneasy with the intensity of his own attention.
“Are ye... all right?” he asked.
