Page 49

“I have endured worse,” he said automatically.

She ignored the words. Up close she saw the strain he tried to hide, the stiffness in the way he held his shoulder. Blood had seeped through the seam of his coat, darker than the wool around it.

Her doing, her mind whispered cruelly. “Dismount and come sit here,” she said, more firmly than she had expected, as she pointed to a large boulder nearby.

His brows lifted, surprised by the command, but after a heartbeat, he obeyed, lowering himself to the ground, then heading for the boulder. “Disarm the fallen and offer them aid, if possible.” Gavan directed his men.

Sorcha stood beside Gavan, and the world narrowed to the quiet space between them. She unfastened the clasp of his coat with careful fingers, her breath catching when she saw the old scar had reopened where the blade had struck him.

He watched her in silence. “You should not be the one tending me,” he said at last, voice low.

“I am here and I can help,” she replied softly.

Her hands moved with practised care, tearing a strip from her cloak lining and pressing it gently to the wound.

His breath hitched.

She felt the contact also, like heat against her skin. “I fear I am a danger to you and your men,” she said quietly as she smoothed the linen flat against his shoulder. “And I never properly thanked you.”

Gavan’s brow furrowed as he looked at her. Dirt streaked one side of his face, and weariness shadowed the hard lines of his expression, yet his attention settled wholly upon her in a way that made the rest of the clearing seem suddenly distant.

“Is that truly what you believe?”

Her throat tightened. “You carry my mark every day.” Her eyes flicked briefly towards the pale scar hidden beneath the fresh bandage. “You lost strength because of me.” Her voice lowered further. “Perhaps more than strength.”

The admission felt dangerously close to another truth she could barely face herself.

Gavan exhaled slowly, as though forcing restraint upon words he no longer trusted. “You think too little of yourself if you believe that is all I see when I look at you.”

Her breath caught painfully.

The wind moved through the trees overhead, stirring loose strands of hair across her face; yet the space between them suddenly felt close and fragile, despite the men moving only yards away.

“What do you see?” she asked, barely louder than the rustling branches.

He hesitated. And in that hesitation, she saw it clearly at last. The same battle she had been fighting within herself mirrored openly in him. Duty against longing. Honour against something far more dangerous.

When he finally spoke, his voice had roughened. “I see a woman who survived things she never should have endured.”

Something tightened painfully inside her chest.

“I see someone who keeps standing when most would have broken.” His gaze did not leave hers now. “Someone who walks willingly into shame and danger for the people she loves.”

Nearby, one of the wounded cried out sharply before the sound faded again into low murmurs. Neither of them looked away.

“I see a woman I cannot stop watching, no matter how often I tell myself I should,” Gavan said more quietly.

The words were not a confession, but they struck her like one. Heat rose slowly along her throat, despite the bitter cold settling through the clearing. She should have looked away then. Should have hidden behind pride or anger, the way she always had before him. She found herself leaning closer without meaning to, drawn by something that felt both terrifying and inevitable.

“And if I told you,” she whispered, “that I watch you as well?”

His breathing stilled.

A heartbeat stretched painfully between them. She saw the exact moment the warrior slipped, when something raw and uncertain crossed his face before he could conceal it again.

“Sorcha . . .”

Her name sounded rougher from him than she had ever heard before. The pull between them felt almost unbearable now, weighted with every glance withheld, every argument sharpened too carefully, every moment neither of them had dared examine too closely.