“Lass,” he said softly as he grasped the horse’s bridle to keep her from jerking awake and galloping away. They were covered in the stag’s blood and would frighten her when she noticed it.
Then she shifted and dark eyes glinted, peering out from the edge of her cloak. Against her chest, a hawk in jesses gripped her sleeve.
Suddenly, the lass became much more interesting. What was she doing with the raptor?
“What? Ach!” Her eyes widened as she took in her situation. “Who are ye? Let me go.”
“I’ll let ye go when ye are awake enough to ride safely. I’m Stellan. Who are ye?”
She studied him, her eyes widening as she took in his and his men’s bloody clothes. No amount of dunking in a shallow burn would remove all of it, though they’d tried.
“Did ye kill the men following me?”
“Men are following ye? Who?”
“MacKays.” She looked around as if looking for a way out.
Tormund came up and gave her a nod before turning to Stellan. “Likely ’tis why that lot were so close to our border last night, aye? Searching for her and found our buck.”
“We havena killed anyone but a buck, lass, and ye are safe with us. Now, who are ye?”
“Mariota. I’m… lost, I think. Can ye help me?”
Stellan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What are ye doing lost in the woods alone?” No lass in her right mind would venture out with nothing but a hawk for company. Or protection?
“I wasna safe where I came from.”
Not safe at MacKay? What had happened there to send her out into the night? “’Tis lucky ye found us. We’re headed home to Sutherland,” he said and nodded toward the buck’s body tied over one of the horses. “Come with us and we’ll see ye taken care of. But first, let’s get ye down. We’re about to break our fast. Ye must be hungry.”
“I am,” she told him and tried to dismount, but the weight of her hawk made her movements awkward and dangerous.
If she fell, she could be hurt, and so could her raptor, so Stellan reached for her waist. She nodded and clung to her hawk while he lifted her down, her arms wrapped around it to keep it still. He held her waist, her slender form burning his hands until she seemed steady on her feet. Once she was off her horse, he realized she was tall enough that the top of her head reached his jaw. Her chestnut hair blazed with golden highlights in the sunrise, her coloring much like her hawk’s. A sensation Stellan had long suppressed filled his chest with heat that radiated throughout his body. He hadn’t felt attraction like this in months, certainly not for a lass he’d just met. But her large eyes, the color of woodland moss, held him in thrall as she looked up at him, studying him much as he did her. He forced himself to release her. She was a lass who needed his help. Scratched and limping as they made their way into the camp, she couldn’t continue her escape on her own. But where was she going? For a moment, he considered whether she’d stolen the hawk, but her clothes were too rich for a serving lass on the run, and the hawk tolerated her touch. This lass was someone of substance.
He helped her to a seat on a log near the fire someone had stirred back to life. “We have trail rations,” he told her. “Oatcakes and dried meat and the like.”
“I’m grateful for anything ye can share,” she told him. “I had to leave too urgently to gather many supplies.”
“Is that why ye are limping?”
“Nay, I twisted my ankle a wee getting down to a burn for some water during the night. ’Tisna bad.” She demonstrated by turning her booted foot one way, then the other.
He noted the quality of the leather and workmanship. Not something a serving lass would own. “Where were ye thinking to go, lass?”
She accepted the food one of his men brought to them, shrugged and took a bite of oatcake. “I thought to reach Inverness. Or Sterling, perhaps.”
Inverness was rebuilding after Domnhall burned down much of it on his way to Aberdeen and the battle at Harlaw last summer. It was not a fit place for a lass alone. But Sterling? To the royal court? He contented himself with asking her, “Alone?” He couldn’t get past the idea that she was mad— or that desperate. There were a lot of mountains between here and her goal. And a lot of dangers. But he held his tongue, wanting to hear what she would reveal— and how she expected to survive.
“With Valkyrie, I would never starve. And I’m hard to kill,” she added softly, as though to herself.
“One well-timed arrow and ye would truly be on yer own,” Stellan observed. Even he and Anders took precautions when they traveled for the clan. Including men and weapons. As many as they could reasonably carry. He’d seen no sign of any with Mariota. But perhaps she sought to hide any she carried because, once again, she was surrounded by men— strangers this time —and was afraid they might try to do her harm like the MacKay soldier
“I nearly was. That is how the fight started with the guard. He shot at Valkyrie. Thank the saints he missed.”
“Yet he and his men are after ye?” Why did he get the sense that she was holding back something important?
“I wounded him. He sought retribution and I had to hurt him again. I wasna safe at home any longer.”
This lass harmed a MacKay guard, twice? Perhaps she was mad. “I’m sorry for that. Could ye no’ appeal to the MacKay?”
