“Well, now that Theodore is dead and the mob crushed, ye are in nay danger.”
He glanced back over his shoulder at her, lifting one eyebrow. “Ye think that this is about danger?”
“Well, nay, I just?—”
“I daenae fear danger, lass. I have to leave.”
“But ye could let it go,” she burst out, rising onto her knees.
“But I willnae,” he answered, suddenly gentle, as if she simply misunderstood him. “Things arenae as simple as ye think, lass. Ye daenae understand.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Aye, well, how could I understand? Ye tell me nothing.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. Half-silhouetted by the firelight as he was, he looked like some mysterious, other-worldly creature. Something different, somethingstrange.
“Ye really want to ken the truth?” he whispered, so quietly that she almost did not hear him.
Her eyes widened, and she nodded.
“Ye are sure ye want to ken?” he pressed.
“Aye, I do.”
He let out a heavy breath and closed his eyes. “Very well, then.”
His hands moved to the collar of his tunic and began to unbutton it.
21
Hannah watched in silence as he unbuttoned his tunic, button by button. There was something slow, almost heavy, about his movements.
Shrugging off the garment, he stood bare-chested in front of her. She let her gaze drop briefly to the plane of his muscled chest, but there was no pulse of desire this time. Whatever he was going to show her was too serious for that.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he turned his back to her.
Hannah bit back a gasp of horror. His back was covered in raised, red-white scars, crisscrossing the skin from his shoulders to the small of his back.
“Are they burn scars?” she whispered.
He nodded tightly. “Brands.”
She slipped unsteadily off the bed and moved toward him, hand outstretched. She stopped herself at the last moment, curling her fingers into a fist and glancing anxiously at him.
“I’m sorry. I… Are they painful?”
“Nae much. Nae anymore. The skin tightens now and then. Scar tissue does that. I’m just used to it. It aches in the cold and stings in the heat. They’re healed, though.”
Upon closer inspection, Hannah could see that the scars were indeed individual brands. There were circles, lines, even a spiral—the sort of brands a person might use to mark cattle. They overlapped, with no particular pattern to them.
“Were these all done at once?” she croaked.
He nodded tersely. “Aye. They were.”
“And… And how many are there?”
He breathed out slowly. “Over fifty.”
She shivered, eyes closing briefly.
