Chapter Thirty

The men holding Lillian up dropped her on the stone floor at the back of the abbey. She writhed, straining against the rope binding her wrists behind her back.

She opened her mouth to call to Kirk once more, but he’d given her over to these men without a fight. Something had changed in him the moment the man he’d called Roland appeared. He’d shut down, reverting to a mindless soldier following orders.

The man must be a figure of authority in the bounty hunter organization Kirk had given his soul to. Whatever he held over Kirk, it was powerful, for Kirk had been pulled tighter than a bow string behind her in the saddle even as he’d spoken calmly to the man.

None of that mattered now, though. He’d turned her over to the same men who’d killed Richard. And now they had her in their clutches.

“Where shall we start?” one of the men asked lowly, his beady eyes fixed on Lillian. They glowed with an animalistic hunger in the light of the embers.

“No reason we can’t have a bit of pleasure before the pain starts,” another one muttered .

A ripple of anticipation went through the men. The one who’d first laid hands on her stepped forward. He scrutinized her for a long moment before at last giving a little nod.

“Aye.”

That word was enough to make the others rumble in approval and excitement.

He stepped toward Lillian, his hands going to the ties holding up his breeches.

Sickness rising to her fear-tightened throat, Lillian lashed out at him with her feet. She landed a blow to his thigh, but he caught her other foot, flinging back her skirts.

She screamed then with every fiber of her soul, but there was no one to hear her or help her. She flailed and fought, but the man began to lower himself on top of her.

A whir pierced the air a fraction of a second before the man hunching over her jerked and twitched. Then he slumped onto her, his weight pinning her to the hard, cold stones. She screamed in terror, but the man stilled, his body going limp and heavy.

It was then that the embers’ light caught the edge of the blade protruding from the back of the man’s neck.

Chaos erupted within the abbey. The four remaining men reached for the swords at their hips. One man whipped back with a gurgling noise, another dagger burying itself in his throat before he could even unsheathe his sword. He collapsed as the others surged toward the open door.

Where Kirk stood.

Illuminated by the orange light of the dying fire, he looked part wild and entirely lethal.

He flicked his wrist and another one of his throwing daggers dropped from his sleeve and into his palm. As the men advanced on him, he hurled the dagger, his hand flying forward.

The dagger lodged in one of the men’s eye sockets. He screamed, falling backward into the fire.

Sparks exploded around him. Lillian tried to scramble away from them, but the body of her attacker still pinned her to the ground. She rolled, her bound hands screaming in protest against the stones, until she was free of the body and the last of the raining sparks.

She looked up just in time to see one of the two remaining men take a swing at Kirk.

“Look out!” she cried, but he’d already darted out of the way.

In close quarters, he was now at a disadvantage. Though the two men could reach him with their swords, his daggers were too short to be used against larger blades, and he no longer had room to throw them.

He ducked and darted around the deadly swing of the swords. As Lillian stared, helplessly transfixed, she was reminded of the first night she saw him. He’d moved like death itself, gracefully lethal yet with the power and determination of a hungry wolf.

As one of the men swung his blade in an arc meant to separate Kirk’s head from his neck, Kirk dove out of the way, rolling between the two men into the abbey. He came up swiftly onto his feet. In the time it took Lillian to blink, he’d delivered four rapid strikes to one of the men’s necks with the dagger in his hand.

A spray of blood erupted from the man’s throat. He collapsed like a rag doll.

The last man flicked a horrified look at his crumpled compatriot. It was all the window Kirk needed. Like lightning, he moved in, closing the distance between them. He drove his bloodied dagger into the man’s middle, then drew it up sharply, then over.

With a wheezing groan, the man fell to the ground as his life drained rapidly from him.

Kirk stood over him, panting, his dagger and the hand that held it dripping blood.

“Kirk.” Lillian’s whisper broke on a sob, shattering the echoing silence inside the abbey.

He lifted his gaze to her, and her heart tore in two for the fear she saw in his wintery eyes. Fear for her.

He bolted to her and fell to his knees at her side. The ropes around her wrists fell away as he slid the blood-soaked dagger across them.

Then she was in his arms, his lips pressing into her hair and his soft voice murmuring reassurances to her.

She shook with her sobs, her voice bouncing back to her in the silent, cold abbey. She clung to him as if she were drowning and he were her only lifeline.

“You came back,” she mumbled through the tears. “You came back.”

“God forgive me for what I put ye through, Lillian,” he moaned, rocking her in his hard embrace. “I couldnae tell ye. There was no time. I couldnae let those men have ye. I dinnae care what Roland does to me, or the Bruce. All I ken is that I am never letting ye go again.”

His words drifted through her overwrought mind. “Roland…or the Bruce?”

“I’ll explain everything,” he said, pulling her back slightly and holding her gaze.

The raw emotion in his pale eyes, the vulnerability, shook her to the core. Gone was the armor, gone was the stone wall he’d erected and the coldness he’d used to push her away. She now saw the fear he’d borne for her, and the love. She finally saw straight to his heart, to his true self.

“I’ll explain,” he repeated, squeezing her shoulders, “but right now there isnae time. I may have just forfeited my life for yers, but I’ll be damned if I dinnae get ye safely out of this—for good.”

He’d forfeited his life for her? The breath froze in her lungs, but all she did was nod. There would be time later to bring all into the light—but now they needed to get away.

Kirk helped her to her feet and held her close as they stumbled around the bodies of her would-be torturers. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pooling blood, the sightless stares, the crumpled, lifeless forms.

She said a silent prayer for Richard, who had endured so much at these men’s hands. Though it did not bring him back or take away what he’d suffered, at least his death had been avenged.

When they stepped from the abbey, Lillian dragged in a breath of the cold, fresh night air to chase away the specter of death.

“I need ye to be strong for just a little while longer, love,” Kirk said, taking her hands. “We must ride hard away from this place.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Aye,” a man’s voice said from the darkened tree line a stone’s throw away.

Kirk suddenly yanked Lillian behind him, putting himself between her and danger. A scream rose to her throat, but then it died when she caught a glimpse of the man striding from the shadows toward them.

Logan Mackenzie.

A cold foreboding swept over her as Logan stalked forward, a throwing dagger glinting in one hand.

His gaze was steel gray as it locked on them. “Where are ye going?”