Fergus had only half finished his plate when Lottie came gasping through the doors, struggling to breathe.
She doubled over, coughing, gasping for air as if she had been drowning, and Aiden went to her, knocking over a glass of mead onto the table. Fergus did not even notice.
“Lottie, what happened? Are ye all right?” Aiden asked, patting her back as she coughed and spat.
Lottie shook her head, but she could not seem to speak. Fergus stood, discarding his plate on the table.
“Where’s Liliana?” he demanded, and Lottie gasped in another breath, unable to speak as she looked up at him with streaming brown eyes. Fergus softened, changing tactics immediately. “Breathe.”
Lottie drew in a stuttering breath through her nostrils. Fergus had seen Jeane demonstrate these breathing exercises to Lottie several times.
He breathed slowly in through his nostrils, out through his mouth, and Lottie mimicked him. After a few breaths, she started to breathe more evenly, and her cough stopped.
“She’s been taken,” she managed, her voice strained.
For a moment, Fergus couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Taken.
Jeane had been taken.
“Where?” he finally managed, his voice eerily calm. Too calm.
Lottie flinched at his tone. “By the woods. We were just walkin’, and these men came out of nowhere. They grabbed her and—Fergus, she saved me,” Lottie said, tears streaming down her face. “They threatened to hurt me if Jeane dinnae go with them. She sacrificed herself for me.”
Fergus’s hands curled into fists. He could feel his control slipping, feel the rage building inside him like a wildfire.
“How long ago?” he demanded.
“Maybe an hour. I tried to run as fast as I could, but I had to keep stoppin’ to catch me breath.”
An hour. They had an hour’s head start.
All he could see was Jeane’s face. Her brown doe eyes looking up at him with trust. Her smile when she’d told him she loved him.
I failed her.
He’d promised to protect her. Promised she was safe with him. And he’d failed.
Just like he’d failed Murphy.
“Me Laird,” Aiden’s voice came from the doorway, cautious. “We need to?—”
“Get out,” Fergus snarled.
“We need to organize the men. We need to ride after her.”
“I said get out!” Fergus growled, and Aiden took a step back.
But Lottie didn’t move. She walked toward her brother, tears still streaming down her face.
“Fergus,” she said softly. “Please. Liliana needs ye.”
At Jeane’s name, something in Fergus broke.
The rage drained out of him all at once, replaced by something worse. Grief. Despair.
He sank into a chair, one of the few still standing, and put his head in his hands.
