“Elena,” he said sharply, pitching his voice back over his shoulder. “Hold fast. Dinna let go—nae matter what.”
Her arms tightened around him at once, and she asked no questions.
Curling his lip into a snarl, Jacob drove the destrier straight at the raiders, needing space to run and fly. He lowered his center in the saddle, letting them believe that he meant to meet them head-on, though he had not drawn his sword.
Shouts broke out. A sword came up. Men surged forward, bracing for impact.
At the last possible moment, before he was within striking distance of any weapon, Jacob hauled the reins hard and gave the command his trusted warhorse knew as well as she knew Jacob’s scent. The destrier wheeled beneath him in a tight, practiced turn, her weight swinging true and clean, hooves biting stone as she spun away from the oncoming riders.
He shouted again for Elena to hang on and drove the destrier forward, hard and fast. The warhorse answered instantly, her stride lengthening into a charge toward the cliff’s edge.
Elena made a sound then—not a cry, but a sharp intake of breath—as the earth vanished beneath them.
For a heartbeat there was nothing at all, no weight in their fall, only the sickening lurch as the world tipped and the sky flung itself wide. Elena screamed. Jacob tore his boots free of the stirrups and let the reins go, knowing the horse would fall faster, her weight already pulling her down and away. He caught Elena’s hands where they were locked around his waist and clamped his arm over them, not wanting the crash to tear them apart.
The river rushed up in a white, violent wall of sound and fury.
They slammed into the river with brutal force, knocking the breath from Jacob’s lungs and wrenching his grip nearly loose. Cold speared through him, shocking and absolute. The impact drove the air from Jacob’s lungs and tore Elena from his grasp despite every effort to hold her, the water smashing between them with brutal force. He was spun end over end, so violent and disorienting that he lost all sense of up and down. He reached blindly, fingers clawing through churning water where she had been, but the river took him hard to the side instead, hurling him against stone. Pain flared white and blinding as his side struck rock, the shock rattling through bone and muscle before the current wrenched him away again.
He fought for air that was not there, fought to keep his limbs moving, forcing himself to kick and twist until the river’s pull shifted from downward to sideways, carrying him rather than dragging him under. His chest burned, vision narrowing, and just as he broke the surface in a choking gasp, another surge slammed him forward and blessedly straight into Elena.
He hit her hard enough to knock their just-recovered breath from their lungs. Elena’s arms flailed in panic as the current rolled them together underwater. Jacob wrapped an arm around her from behind, hauling her up against him, dragging her head clear of the water as a wave swept over them again.
She came up sputtering, coughing violently, water spewing from her mouth as she clung desperately to his arm, her fingernails biting into flesh. Her breaths were shallow and choked, each one a struggle, and Jacob tightened his hold, bracing himself against the pull of the river, turning his body so that he took the worst of it.
“Breathe,” he gasped hoarsely, fighting his own need for air as much as hers. “Breathe, Elena.”
She coughed again, choking, and he felt the distress in his arm. Jacob kicked and strained, not trying to fight the river—he knew better than that—but working to keep them afloat, to keep her head above water as they were carried through the last of the violent churn.
Gradually, the fury eased. The water still ran swift, but it no longer struck with the same relentless force, and they began to float more than tumble, borne along by the current rather than battered by it. Lungs still burning, Jacob gulped air with less desperation, every muscle trembling with strain, his arm locked around Elena as she continued to sputter weakly.
When the river widened and the worst of its fury eased, Jacob angled them toward the bank but did not force the last of it. Twenty feet still lay between them and shore, close enough to promise safety yet far enough to demand one more effort than he was willing to spend all at once. He hooked an arm around a jut of rock and held fast, water sliding past them now instead of battering, his breath coming hard as he kept Elena afloat against his chest.
“Gimme a minute,” he said roughly, and they both sagged into the hold—his grip locked on stone, her weight steady in his arms—while the river slipped by, no longer a threat, only something that remained to be escaped.
At last, he spent what remained of his strength and pushed them free of the rock, driving them the final distance to shore. The water resisted only weakly now, and Jacob half dragged, half carried Elena onto a narrow shelf above the waterline before his legs gave way. They collapsed there in a sprawl of soaked wool and bruised limbs—Elena face-down against the stone, Jacob flat on his back, the river’s roar close enough to tremble beneath them but no longer able to reach.
For a long while there was nothing but breath. His chest rose and fell in harsh, uneven pulls, every muscle trembling with the aftermath of effort, his heartbeat loud in his ears. Beside him, Elena lay utterly still except for the ragged drag of air into her lungs, the worst of the coughing finally spent.
Eventually, she stirred. Slowly, as though even the act of moving required thought, she rolled onto her back and lay staring up at the wide, indifferent sky as Jacob did. He watched the clouds blur and drift, letting the cool air slowly ease the burning in his lungs.
Time passed, though how much, he could not have said.
Then Elena’s hand found his. Jacob held his breath. Her touch was not tentative. Her fingers were cold but steady, curling around his with quiet intent, giving a small, steady squeeze.
Jacob exhaled and closed his eyes, his hand closing around hers.
THEY DID NOT LINGERby the river.
Elena would have, if left to herself, but Jacob would not allow it.
“We need to move, Elena.”
He stood and reached down to help her to her feet, and then took her hand, leading them upriver at first.
They came upon the destrier within the first few minutes. She lay caught against a bend in the river where the current slowed, her dark body half-submerged, her head turned awkwardly toward the bank as though she had tried to reach it. The water moved around her now rather than over her, tugging gently at her mane and tail, indifferent in the way nature regularly was.
Elena’s mouth opened, though for a moment she could not breathe. That poor, blessed animal, who had kept them safe for so long. Tears watered her eyes.
