"Go," he hissed into her ear, his voice urgent and bleeding with emotion. He shoved her toward the thickest part of the underbrush, the direction of the hidden path he had shown her. "Run tae the keep, Enya. Bring Leo and the men. Dinnae look back.Go!"
He turned back to face the onslaught, intentionally leaving his back open to buy her those precious seconds. He waited for the sound of her crashing through the brush, for the relief of knowing she was away.
But the sound never came.
Through the haze of blood and sweat, he saw her. Enya hadn't run. She stood at the edge of the clearing, her chest heaving, her eyes locked on him. She could have been a mile away before they even realized she was gone.
Instead, she dropped her branch and took a step toward him, her hands raised in a gesture of surrender that felt more like an act of war.
"I’m nae leaving ye," she stated, her voice trembling but clear. “I go wi' ye."
The distraction cost him everything.
A heavy blow caught Harald across the temple. The world exploded into white light, then faded to a dull, throbbing gray. He felt his sword slip from his fingers, heard the clatter of it against the stones—the sound of his own defeat.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Harald’s head throbbed.
He simply rolled onto his side in the moldy hay, his eyes frantically scouring the shadows. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he knew that Enya was there with him. He couldfeelher.
"Enya?" he rasped. The name felt like a prayer and a plea combined.
"I’m here," came the choked reply. “Harald, I was so afraid, ye were out for a couple of days.”
He saw her then, a small, curled shape a few feet away. She was struggling against the hemp biting into her wrists, her breath coming in those sharp, shallow hitches he had learned to recognize as her fighting back a breakdown.
Harald shuffled through the filth, dragging his bound arms behind him, his shoulders screaming in protest. He didn't stop until his shoulder hit hers.
"Are ye hurt?" he whispered, leaning his forehead against the side of her head. He could smell the forest in her hair—pine and earth. "Enya, look at me. Did they strike ye?"
She turned her face toward him. In the sliver of moonlight filtering through the rotted slats of the roof, he saw the silver tracks of tears on her cheeks. She was crying, and the sight of it made Harald want to tear the world apart.
"I’m whole," she whispered, her voice trembling but gaining that familiar, stubborn edge. "Mostly just... upset. The brute who came inside tae check up on us had breath like a dead goat.”
Harald closed his eyes, a pained, huffing laugh escaping his throat that was half-sob and half-wonder. Even now, bound in a cage of rot and facing an almost certain death, she was clawing for her wit, trying to weave a safety net to catch him as he fell. He pressed his forehead against hers, his skin burning where they touched.
For a moment, the stench of the barracks vanished. In its place was only the terrifyingly beautiful weight of her existence.
He felt her pulse thrumming against his shoulder. It was a love that consumed the last of his cold, lonely defenses, leaving him raw and utterly, helplessly hers.
"Ye fool," he murmured, his voice thick with a devastating tenderness that made his throat ache. "Why did ye stay?"
Enya leaned into him, her weight a heavy, precious burden. "Me blood is tied tae yers, Harald. I’d rather be in this pit wi' ye than safe in a keep wi’out ye."
"Enya..." He rasped.
The moment of quiet was shattered.
The heavy iron bar on the outside of the door clattered upward. The doors swung open with a violent crack, framing a figure against the silver-blue night.
Finley Cameron stepped into the barracks. He moved with a slow, predatory grace, his boots polished and silent against the rotted floorboards. Behind him, two men held torches, the flickering orange light dancing cruelly over the scene of their defeat.
Harald looked up, and a wave of pure, visceral revulsion rose in his throat, more bitter than the blood in his mouth.
To Harald, Finley looked like a sickness given human form. The man was too clean, too smooth, his presence an insult to the honest grime and bone-deep exhaustion of the forest.
Harald felt a surge of disgust that made his skin crawl—the kind of loathing one feels for a parasite that hides in the dark and feeds on its own kin. Seeing those cold, manic eyes settle on Enya made Harald’s stomach churn with a protective nausea; it was the look of a butcher assessing a prized lamb, devoid of any shred of humanity.
