Page 78

I don’t know how else to describe it. His whole body had gone all tight and jittery against my back in the way of a man who was watching his plans fall apart.

“After Maardok kills your men, you might have time to take their coin purses back before he guts you,” I mused, almost pleasantly.

Mayhap I shouldn’t have mocked him, because he jammed the knife a little higher.

“Shut your mouth.”

“I was trying to be helpful,” I lied, tipping my head out of the way of the blade. “You crossed into another world, and you tracked us all the way to Islay, and you have wagered everything—the baron, the gold, your fine place in his household—on two men you found in a tavern?”

“I said shut your⁠—”

“That one is bleeding out on his own boots.”

I tried to keep my tone conversational, hoping to distract John into something foolish.

“How much did he cost?”

Aye, I know ‘twas stupid to prod the man, but he’d come to my home to steal my son. He wanted to use Ewan for his own gain, not because he calmed the lad’s fears or played with him or cared for him, but for gold. I was livid, and I was lashing out stupidly.

I know ‘twas stupid, because John’s response was to make a sound like an injured animal, and use his hold on me to wrench me to one side. The tip of the blade scraped along my collarbone, causing me to suck in a sharp gasp, and then I was flying.

I hit the dirt hard on my hands and one hip. Stones bit into my palms, scraping away the flour still dusting my knuckles, and by the time I had my head up John was already moving—three long strides, low and fast and entirely silent, the knife held down along his thigh.

He was heading straight for my Mate’s back.

I opened my mouth and screamed without thinking.

“Maardok!”

He was mid-turn, finishing the second man, his blade flashing silver as it sliced through tendons and sinew, fountaining blood and gore. When he heard my cry, he came around with his sword still moving, and he was fast⁠—

Not quite fast enough.

John’s knife went into his upper arm. The same godforsaken arm Mormmit had opened three weeks past, that Matthias had stitched fourteen times, stitches that Ewan had counted with his tongue between his teeth.

The pain arrived in me before the sound did.

It came through the Mate Bond white and immediate, and it doubled me over on my hands among the stones, and the scream that was wrenched from me then was naught like the way I’d called his name.

‘Twas not mere fear. I was well past fear. ‘Twas the sound of a woman on the ground watching her Mate’s blood blossom from a blow, and knowing she could have prevented it if she’d been faster, braver, stronger⁠—

Maardok had promised John a slow death. He had bargained for it, calmly, and I had believed every word.

He broke his promise.

He turned into the knife instead of away from it, the sort of move only the most confident of warriors could make, and he brought his sword across once.

That was all. One movement and ‘twas over, and ‘twas far cleaner and far kinder than anything John had earned.

Then Maardok dropped the sword in the dirt and lunged for me.

He ignored the wound in his arm, and by the time he reached me, he was on his knees, his good arm sliding beneath my ribs to haul me onto his lap. His other hand went to my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek in a territorial claim, and I felt his panic.

“Dkaar, are ye⁠—?”

His voice caught, and I could feel the tension in him, the fear that still thrummed through our Bond.

“Why did ye scream? Did he hurt ye?”