It was all Sheena could do to suppress a smile of triumph as Rowen whirled around to stare at her in surprise.
“It’s your mare, Lady! My brother, Kael, helps tae look after the horses and he just told me the poor creature’s lying down in her stall and groaning piteously.”
“Snow? Ah, God…”
Rowen hoisted up her gown and began to run and so did Sheena, right after her, both of them ducking into the stable while Sheena looked around desperately for a shovel—och, there was one!
She had only to grab it and then she was right behind Rowen, who had stopped at the stall to see the white mare munching contentedly upon some hay.
“I thought you said?—”
A sharp thunk to the back of the head had cut off Rowen’s query and she collapsed to the ground…senseless, but still breathing.
“So I did, Lady…so I did,” Sheena muttered, throwing open the door to the stall and quickly saddling and bridling the mare.
Another moment more and she had hoisted Rowen’s limp body onto the horse, an easy enough task after carrying all those pitchers of ale that had honed the muscles in her arms. She threw a blanket over Rowen and then mounted the mare to guide her out of the stable just as she heard the creaking of the castle gates.
“Och, no…” Sheena dug her heels into the mare’s sides so sharply that the creature whinnied in pain and bolted into a gallop, men’s voices crying out—was that Kael’s voice, too?—as they careened toward the gates with just enough of an opening…
Wild exhilaration swept Sheena to find herself outside the castle walls even as more shouts filled the air.
Let them bellow and bluster! With Rowen’s limp arms and legs bouncing against the mare, Sheena steered the animal at a breakneck pace toward the distant pines that Alec and the others would surely have avoided so they could cut closer to the coastline.
Yet she knew the way alongside a tumbling creek that would get her to the cove before they would ever find it—Sheena considering for an instant just dumping Rowen off the cliff.
No, too quick an end for the woman who had ruined everything for her—everything!
Sheena wanted her to brutally suffer at the hands of those raiders, and she wanted Alec to suffer, too, when he returned to the castle to find Rowen gone forever.
A pity Sheena wouldn’t be there to see his face, but now she could never go back there. She would ride southward instead, where she would make a new life for herself and never think of Alec and his enemy bride ever again?—
“Sheena,stop!”
Her breath caught at Kael’s distant shout, she glanced over her shoulder to see him riding through the gates with four of Alec’s warriors, which only made her prod the mare again with her heels.
No, she wouldn’t stop, not with vengeance so close she could taste it.
A moment more and she had reached the cover of the pines, not allowing herself to consider that Kael knew the way, too. Yet what did it matter? She had gained enough of a lead to reach the cove before him, Sheena gritting her teeth and hoping that the raiders had taken shelter there last night.
If not—och, God, no, she wouldn’t think of that chance either, Kael’s persistent shouts carrying to her as she spurred the lunging mare toward the creek.
CHAPTER17
“Did you hear anything?”
Donald shook his head at Alec’s whispered query, their swords drawn as they crept closer on foot toward the four ships beached along the sheltered cove.
Mackay warriors followed behind them while the Sutherlands approached stealthily on foot from the opposite bank, the dense fir trees giving them much-needed cover.
If that dying raider hadn’t told them about this place, Alec doubted they would have found it for the natural concealment created by rocks and forest.
Wood smoke hung in the air from smoldering fires at an encampment near the head of the inlet where the raiders had bedded down for the night—och, a drunken stupor from Norse mead was more likely. Their bellies full, too, after slaughtering and roasting the livestock they had stolen from the village. From this vantage point, Alec could see men sprawled upon the ground half-covered in blankets while several crude tents had been erected closer to the ships.
Was that where their captives were being held? Mayhap Thorgren Sigurdson sleeping in one of the tents rather than out in the open—and with poor Tira at his side?
Sickened by the thought, Alec was distracted again by a sound carried on the breeze wafting through the trees, the morning thankfully much warmer than the days before and the snow only a fine dusting here?—
“Aye, I heard it this time,” Donald hissed, glancing over his shoulder. “Someone shouting in the distance. Och, they’ll wake the bastards for certain if we dinna attack now.”
