Regarding her once more, he decided he would haveremembered her no matter how drunk he was. She was a bonny lass. Even in the darkness, she shone above all other women he had met in his life, and he couldn’t look away from her round, now blue-gray eyes dominating her smooth-skinned face. He only just stopped himself from reaching out and touching her sun-kissed skin.
Had he died? Was she his angel, the one to take him to the hereafter?
He tore his gaze from her face too quickly, his brain swirling around inside his skull. He pressed his hands over his temples and stared out over the dark moor. The lass had told him he wasn’t dead.
Turning carefully so as not to stir his brain again, he said, “They are all gone, but they will be back again when it is light to make certain none were left behind.”
She glanced at a lone tree between them and the battlefield, then stared at him with blank eyes. Pulling her cloak around her, she stood up and scanned the area as if she were deciding which way to go.
Was she thinking of leaving him there?
Iain gritted his teeth at the pain in his head and tried giving her his most charming smile. “I think the best course for us would be to return to yer village.”
She shook her head, loose strands of brown hair swishing about her ears. “Village? Ah, no, that’s the first place they’ll look.”
She took a step, and thinking she was indeed leaving, he pulled on her cloak. It snapped out of her hands and revealed the strangest attire Iain had ever seen. He gasped, his eyes popping at the tightness of her black trousers on her legs. Her white shirt was so thin, he was certain he could see her flesh through the flimsy material below her neck. The cut of her black coat was as a man’s formal dress but shorter, much shorter.
Irritation washed over her face as she grappled with the sides of her cloak, replacing it over her body.
Iain had never seen the likes of her before. Her immoral clothes and her strange dialect had him backing up against the trunk of a tree. “Who . . . what are ye?”
“Never mind that now. Can you stand up?”
Iain couldn’t move. He just sat staring at the angelic vision, wondering if he was delirious. Mayhap she was a faerie or a witch. Considering the way she was dressed, Iain’s mind turned to a glaistig. She was beautiful enough to put a spell on any man. A shiver ran down Iain’s back as he recalled that glaistigs, like all sirens, killed the men they enchanted.
Keeping as still as possible, he peered at her. The full moon’s rays inching past the clouds proved her hair to be more red than brown, and he decided she had to be an angel. With stray tendrils loosely falling about her heart-shaped face, she couldn’t possibly be anything else.
She turned to the left, and he could just make out the first curves of a braid.
He glared at her. “Nae human has such perfectly formed brows.”
She looked at him, confusion springing into her eyes, but then she let out a short laugh. “Well, I do, buster.” Those same brows drew together, and she mumbled, “At least for the time being.”
Iain wondered at her speech. The way she saidbustersounded like a curse.
She pulled on his good arm before he could ponder for too long. “At least try to get up yourself. I can’t carry you.”
“We should wait to make sure we are alone,” he argued. “If there’s anyone out there, they’ll see us in a heartbeat if we try to move now.”
She looked about again and sighed. “Fine.”
The reluctant surrender in that one word told Iain thatshe didn’t like relinquishing control one bit. Witch or angel, he would learn soon enough. First, he needed her to help him stay alive.
They waited in the ever-growing silence until he was certain no one was about. He took a moment to study her as stealthily as he could. She appeared to be alone. But why would such a bonny lass be alone on Drumossie Moor?
“Why are ye oot here all alone?”
Her blue eyes sparkled as she thought for a moment before speaking. “I got lost.”
“Why didnae ye stay hidden or run as far away from this place as ye could? Why did ye stay?”
“I didn’t know where to go, and I was hiding, at least, until I saw you move.” Her shoulders slumped as she sighed. “I couldn’t very well leave you there. I didn’t know how badly you were wounded, and once I had the thought that your enemy might come back and finish the job, I had to get you out.”
“Ye could have been killed.”
“Yeah, I thought about that while I was dragging you off the field. Anyway, should we go now?”
Taking her arm and forcing his leg muscles to cooperate, Iain managed to get to his feet. His head still filled with agony every time he moved it, but the pain in his side wasn’t as bad as he would have expected. Mayhap the wound wasn’t severe. He paused in his thoughts. Or mayhap it was so bad his body was masking the pain. He’d heard of people losing limbs and not feeling the injury until much later.
