Swallowing hard to try and moisten her throat, she watched as he made his way back through the forest, his eyes pinned on the ground, muttering something as though irritated that he had to go back and forth with all of this. He just wanted her dead. The thought sent a sick shiver down her spine, the feeling of it digging into her skin.He wanted her dead.Nobody had ever wanted to kill her before, and knowing that she likely stood no chance of escape made her feel ill. She tried to cry out, but her voice was so hoarse from the running that she could not make a sound…
Then, all at once, she heard something. Her ears pricked. It sounded like… it sounded like footsteps. Though not Archibald’s. No, they belonged to someone else, she was sure of it, someone else who was swiftly closing the distance between them. Her heart leapt. Could it be…?
“There she is!”
A familiar roar cut through the forest, sending birds fluttering from the near-bare branches around her. She gasped. It was!
“Kiernan!” she tried to cry, but she could hardly speak. At last, though, she saw it: his figure, cutting through the trees, followed by a handful of men—one of whom she recognized. She squinted into the darkness.Arran?What was Arran doing here?
Kiernan rushed towards her, seemingly unable to pay attention to anything else around him. To her horror, though, she saw Archibald rounding on him from behind. Her eyes widened, and he seemed to register the expression on her face just in time to turn and duck from the blow that Archibald aimed at his head with his newfound blade.
“Archie!” Kiernan yelled, as he rose back to his feet, his hand on his sword. “What the hell do ye think ye’re doing, man?”
“I’m doing what needs tae be done,” Archie snarled at him as he raised the blade again, the cold, serrated edge gleaming like teeth in the dim light.
“Taking her?” Kiernan demanded. “Ye think that’s what I needed you to do?”
“I think this Englishwoman has put you under some kind of spell,” he sneered, taking a step closer to Kiernan. Mary could see his hand grip a little tighter to the hilt of the blade, but he was still reluctant to bring it from its sheath. This man, after all, had been his friend up until very recently. It must have been painful for him to see him betray him in such a fashion, and she could feel the doubt and the disbelief coming off him in waves.
“Fer a man like you, to marry an Aitken?” he continued, shaking his head. “I’m doing you a kindness, lad. Disposing of her, so you can find a more suitable bride?—”
That seemed to be the last straw for Kiernan. He drew his sword, and, like a beast untamed, flew for Archibald at once.
Mary gasped as she saw her husband throw himself at the man who had tried to take her. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. All the distance between them, all the ways that Kiernan had tried to pull back from her in the time that they had been together, only for him to fight like a man possessed when someone so much as suggested he would have been better off married to someone else?
She felt someone tugging at her bindings, and glanced around to see Arran standing just a few feet from her.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him, as he quickly undid the knot that Archie had created around her wrists. He shook his head.
“He needed help,” he replied, as though it should have been obvious. But, as she stared at him, she knew his choice to come here had not been about Kiernan. It had been about Amelia. She must have received the letter that Mary had sent to her,and now, she had sent her husband to make sure she came home safe. A swell of emotion threatened to overtake her. Arran was hardly the most expressive at the best of times, but she knew that his decision to aid Kiernan in his time of need was a profound one.
As soon as he had undone the bindings, Mary rushed towards Kiernan and Archibald. Arran caught her arm in the split second before she could throw herself into the fray.
“Stay back!” he warned her. “He means to kill ye!”
She had almost forgotten that Archie had plans to end her life. In that moment, as she watched Kiernan throw himself into their battle, all she cared about was making sure her husband was safe.
Kiernan drew his blade back and swung it at Archibald, and the older man lifted his dagger, catching the edge of Kiernan’s sword in the jagged teeth that glinted in the light. Kiernan let out a growl of fury, and pulled his sword away again, swinging it low at Archibald’s legs, but he managed to dodge to one side to send it crashing into the trunk of a tree, where it was briefly stuck, leaving Kiernan frozen to the spot.
Mary’s heart flipped in her chest when she saw Archibald round on him, pulling the dagger back and leaping for his turned back. Kiernan, though, seemed to sense his onslaught, and he threw his shoulders back, knocking Archibald off-balance and sending him staggering, giving Kiernan a chance to pull his blade from the tree and turn to face him once more.
It was then that Mary caught sight of his eyes, the almost-mad look in them, as though he was utterly lost to the rage and fury that Archibald had drawn out in him. But it wasn’t just his betrayal, she was sure of that. No, it was because Archibald had threatened to take her from him, and he was not going to let it happen, not for anything.
Kiernan, his face still blazing with rage, turned to Archibald again. The older man had struggled to regain his balance, but Kiernan showed no mercy. Using the tip of his sword, he knocked the dagger from Archibald’s hand, sending it crashing to the soft earth below, and, just as Archibald dropped to his knees to retrieve it, Kiernan brought his sword to the tip of his throat.
Archibald slowly lifted his hands, acknowledging that he was caught. The way the blade looked against his neck, Mary could tell that all it would take was the barest twitch of Kiernan’s hand to draw blood, to send his head falling from his shoulders.
“You tried to kill my wife,” Kiernan told him, slowly, almost thoughtfully, as though he could not very well make sense of it himself. Archibald looked up at him, defiant.
“And I’d do it again, to save you from yerself,” he snapped back. “If your father could see you, so in thrall to an Aitken, an Englishwoman, no less?—”
“You have no idea the kind of woman she is,” Kiernan snarled, and Archibald’s eyes flashed with anger.
“You planned to destroy the Aitkens,” he reminded him, fury bubbling into his voice. “You married her because ye—because yekenthat they stand in opposition to you, to yer father! All those years, and they never capitulated to him?—”
“And maybe capitulation isn’t what I need.”
Archibald shook his head slowly.
