Farther up the trail, Rory caught sight of a flash of brown through the trees and signaled to Kenneth to keep quiet. Moving silently into the wood, he stalked the animal for several yards until the stag, sensing danger, paused and lifted its head, ready to bolt.
Holding his breath, Rory drew back his bow and took aim. Ach, this fellow was a beauty. Just as he was about to release the arrow, a child’s scream rent the air and echoed off the hills.
Rory dropped his bow and ran through the woods toward the boy’s shouts. He’d gone farther from the path than he realized, and it seemed as if he would never reach the river. When he did, he caught sight of the boy a hundred feet downstream, his head bobbing in and out of the water.Jesu.
“Kenneth!” Rory shouted. “I’m coming!”
His heart was in his throat as he raced down the path. The fast current was carrying the lad downstream toward the falls.Just like my mother.
This was not the same river, not the same falls, but Rory felt as if he was in the nightmare he’d had a thousand times, in which he watched her body being swept over the falls and battered by the rocks. He could not let that happen to the boy.
He flew over the ground until he was just past where the boy was in the river. In an instant, he jerked off his boots, stripped out of his heavy clothes, and dove in. The icy cold hit him like a wall of ice.
He looked around frantically. God have mercy, he could not see the lad anywhere.
“Kenneth! Kenneth!” He could hardly hear his own voice over the rushing water. “Kenneth!”
He feared the lad had been sucked under and drowned when Kenneth’s head popped up some distance ahead. The current was pulling him downriver, ever closer to the falls.
He was only thirty feet away, but it seemed a mile. Rory closed the distance to twenty feet, then ten. Kenneth’s head sank and popped up and then sank again. Rory swam as hard as he could toward where the boy had gone down. A heavy tree branch rammed into him, knocking him sideways, but he kept his eyes fixed on the spot where the boy should be.
The roar of the falls grew louder, pounding in his ears. In his mind’s eye, he saw the boy’s battered body at the base of the falls. He had to reach himnow.
“Kenneth!”
The lad’s head broke the surface just beyond his reach. Rory lunged and caught hold of his shirt. Wrapping one arm around the lad, he swam like hell for the shore. The fierce pull of the current was like a giant beast trying to drag them over the edge. He could see the drop of the falls on the edge of his vision.
With his free arm, he caught hold of a low-hanging branch. He pulled himself and the boy along the branch toward the riverbank until he gained purchase with his feet. The stones were slippery with algae, and he went down, banging his injured leg, but he managed to keep the lad’s head above water and regain his footing.
Finally, he climbed out and crawled onto the bank.
He was on his hands and knees, gasping for air. Water streamed into his eyes as he looked down at Kenneth’s still form.Jesu,he was not breathing. Quickly, Rory turned him on his side and slapped him between his shoulder blades.
Breathe, Kenneth! Breathe!Rory thumped his back again.Breathe!
The lad’s small body convulsed, and he coughed and choked as water gushed out of his mouth.God be praised.Rory sat back on his heels and let out a shuddering breath.
The boy rolled onto his back and looked up at him with wild eyes.
“You’re going to be all right,” Rory said as he wiped Kenneth’s face off with the edge of the lad’s sopping shirt.
The lad’s skin was blue, and he was shivering like a frozen leaf in a winter storm. Rory scooped him up against his chest, heaved himself to his feet, and started down the path.
“I left my plaid up the trail,” he said, talking to reassure the boy. “We’ll get it and dry ye off.”
When Rory reached his pile of discarded clothes, he stripped the boy of his wet clothing and wrapped him in his plaid. Then he held him and rubbed his back and limbs until Kenneth finally stopped shaking.
The lad was bruised and bleeding, and his face was so pale that the sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks stood out. He could have worse injuries Rory could not see. Rory had to get him back to the castle quickly. When he lifted him in his arms again, he seemed so small and fragile.
Sybil’s words came to him.The lad needs you.Ye must protect him.
She was right. His life could be extinguished in a careless moment. And nearly was.
Rory had tried to ignore this child, to deny the blood tie that would take everything away from the son he hoped to have with the woman he loved, the son who should be his heir. Sybil had been wiser, and certainly more generous, and embraced the truth.
Holding this child in his arms now, he needed no proof. He felt their blood bond. He could no longer deny that this copper-headed lad was his. And he did not want to. He prayed it was not too late.
“Ye don’t need to carry me,” Kenneth said in a voice that was so weak it sent fear pulsing through Rory’s veins. “I can walk.”
