Page 61 of It’s in his Highland Kiss

“Then I should go after Marion,” Eiric said, just as Edan threw a change of clothes at him, which he barely managed to grab before they could fall on the floor.

“Do ye really think that’s wise?” Edan asked. “I ken that ye’re worried about her, but yer faither thinks she can do just fine on her own.”

“Me faither sent her to the mouth of the beast,” Eiric said. “He shouldna have done that. He especially shouldna have done that without consultin’ me first.”

“Why would he consult ye?” Edan asked, a small frown on his face. “He consulted Marion, she told him that she could do it. What would he ask ye for?”

“Marion may think that she can do it, but she’s nae like me or ye,” Eiric said. He began to dress, pulling on his clothes with more force than necessary, and then sat back on the bed, his head in his hands. “I wish ye’d have stopped her before she left.”

“There was nay stoppin’ her,” Edan said, as he sat down on the bed next to Eiric, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’d tell ye to leave her be. Dinna go after her. Ye’ll make everythin’ worse if ye do.”

“How will I make anythin’ worse than it already is?” Eiric asked. “She’s in danger.”

“Ye dinna ken that,” Edan insisted. “I’m sure that she’s perfectly safe with that Sassenach bastard.”

“Aye, it sounds like he’s a verra good man from the way ye described him.” Eiric rolled his eyes, but his head was still bowed, so Edan couldn’t see it. “Besides, it isna that one Sassenach I’m worried about. It’s all of them. Maybe she can take that one alone, but what happens if they find out that she’s been lyin’ to them? They’ll have her hanged, or worse.”

“If they find out,” Edan reminded him. “But if they dinna, then we’ll ken more about their troops and their plans than ever before.”

“Is that worth riskin’ Marion’s life?”

To Eiric, there was nothing that was worth such a sacrifice. He would readily give his own life for his people, but he would never sacrifice Marion’s own. Her death would be his own, too.

“We’re all riskin’ our lives,” Edan pointed out, quite unhelpfully in Eiric’s eyes. “Ye send me and all the lads to the mouth of the beast, as ye said, all the time. What’s the difference? Do ye care more about her than ye do for the rest of us?”

“Nay, and ye ken that,” Eiric said, finally looking up to glare at Edan. “I care about all of ye, Marion included. I care about all of ye verra much. But ye and I, and the rest of the lads . . . we were born to fight. We were born to be warriors.”

“Maybe that was her fate, too.”

Maybe that was her fate, too. Could it be? Could it be that she was meant to be a warrior?

Eiric sighed, his mind filled with conflicting thoughts. As much as Edan was trying to reassure him, and as much sense as he made, Eiric couldn’t help but have that all-encompassing worry, which ate him up from the inside. He had come to terms with the fact that his friends could die in battle from a young age; he had not yet come to terms with the fact that the same could happen to Marion. The women in his life were not supposed to die on a sword, Eiric thought.

“I canna leave her all alone,” he said in the end, shaking his head. “I canna. As much as ye or me faither want me to stay away and give her a chance, I canna. I have a verra bad feeling about all this, Edan.”

“She’s a clever lass.”

“Aye,” Eiric agreed. “And that Sassenach Commander who has her is just like the rest of them. If Lynton could torture me almost to the point of death, imagine what the commander will do to Marion if he finds out the truth.”

Edan let out a sigh at that, nodding at Eiric. “If that’s what ye want, then we’ll go find her.”

“Ye dinna have to come with me, Edan,” Eiric assured him.

“Ach, but I do,” Edan said. “And it willnae be only the two of us. Ye saw what happened last time ye went out there on yer own. This time, we’ll bring the lads, and we’ll kill any Sassenach who gets in our way.”

Eiric couldn’t disagree with that. Besides, he didn’t want to put Edan in any unnecessary danger, and even though his men were supposed to be preparing for a much more important battle, to the point where he couldn’t afford to lose a single one of them, he knew that he hardly had another choice. Going after Marion meant that he would have to use all the manpower he could spare.

He doubted that he could get her back peacefully. There was bound to be a fight, and whenever there was a fight, there were bound to be bodies. He simply had to make sure that those bodies would belong to the enemy, not his men.

“Get the men ready then,” Eiric said, as he pushed himself off his bed.

“What?” Edan asked, seemingly frozen in spot, staring at Eiric with a pair of wide eyes. “Right the noo?”

“Aye,” Eiric said. “Why wait? The sooner we get to Marion, the better.”

For a moment, Eiric thought that Edan would disagree with him, and instead try to convince him that it would be better to wait, perhaps even send some scouts ahead of them, so that they could gather some information—it was true, after all, that Eiric didn’t know Marion’s exact location. In the end, though, Edan simply nodded in agreement and stood, making his way to the door.

“What will ye tell the laird?” he asked, his hand gripping the doorknob.