4
BERRIES AND BLOOD
“Taryn!”
“Taryn! Where are ye?”
“Taryn!”
Shout after shout, the Kincaid clan moved in a line, searching the forest for Taryn. Sorcha couldn’t seem to fend off the gnawing panic in her gut. Something was horribly wrong. Taryn was too careful for it not to be. She was always too careful to disappear like this.
“Taryn,” Sorcha called, adding her voice to the chorus.
The trees seemed so densely packed, their limbs ominous and foreboding. In all the hours Sorcha had spent out here patrolling, she had never been spooked or nervous. Not like she was now.
It had been hours since Sorcha had first discovered Taryn was missing. Too many hours for her to still be in the woods. Sorcha stopped her yelling and turned her attention to the forest floor, looking for any sign of where her friend had been. She traced the patrol route, her eyes glued to the forest floor. Fresh snow laid on the ground, erasing any trace of footsteps, but she knew there had to be something. Taryn was too keen not to leavesome indication of what had happened. Minutes passed, though it felt like hours, before she found what she was looking for.
“Aila! Over here!”
Sorcha was already crouched beside the bramble bush when Aila made it to her side.
“What did ye find?”
Reaching under the thorny branches, Sorcha pulled out a jeweled pin that had been in Taryn’s hair from the wedding. She had been so anxious to get outside that Taryn hadn’t bothered to undo her hair. Pulling the pin out, Sorcha held it up for Aila to see.
“Some of the branches are broken. Look,” Lachlan pointed over head to a few snapped limbs.
“This is where she was taken,” Sorcha told them decidedly.
“She must have been collecting berries for the children,” Aila added, crouching beside Sorcha. “Some of these bushes have been picked over.”
A thick stream of guilt coursed through Sorcha. This was all her fault. Aila and Lachlan shouldn’t be out, traipsing through the woods the morning after their wedding. They should be cozy, locked in their room together. Taryn should never have gone on patrol—not alone and not at night. Sorcha had made a mess of things.
Rising from the ground, Sorcha gripped the pin as she started to study the trees. It took only a moment for her to make out the path the kidnappers had gone.
“They’re headed south. If we leave now, we can catch up to them before they do anything to her.”
“We cannae let the bounty hunters take her to the baron,” Aila added, just as concerned.
Sorcha was marching towards her horse, ready to swing up and take off, when a large hand rested on her shoulder, pulling her back. Anger flooded her and Sorcha jerked, ready to swing.
“Think about what ye are doing,” Lachlan urged softly.
She knew that gentle tone worked wonders on Aila, but it only made Sorcha narrow her eyes in suspicion.
“I am going after my friend before she is made to suffer too greatly. What do ye think I am doing?”
“I ken that ye are worried about her. I am too,” he told both of the women. “But this is a dangerous situation that can go wrong in numerous ways. We cannae risk being reckless, rushing in without thinking things through first.”
Sorcha huffed, the air creating a cold cloud in front of her mouth.
“What are ye saying?” Aila challenged her husband, her hands on her hips.
“I am saying that ye are both assuming ye ken what happened here. Ye think it was a bounty hunter who took her, but ye dinnae ken that for sure. What if it was the English Guard trying to lure us out so they can attack the castle? What if it was someone from her past? What if it was many men that will outnumber ye, should ye go after them?” He shook his head and ran a worried hand through his hair. “We must think through our plan. We cannae rush into this.”
As if to prove his point, snow began to fall, slowly at first and then rapidly turning into thick sheets. Even if Sorcha wanted to go, and she desperately did, the weather wasn’t going to let her.
“We should return to the castle and wait out the snow. By the time the weather clears, we will have a clear plan of what to do next.”
