Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“ O h, this is useless.”
“It’s nae,” Kai assured Ava after some minutes of them dancing together. “Look.” He glanced toward their sisters, but Thora and Lyla were now much more caught up in conversation beside the fire, stifling giggles as Laird MacKinnon began to snore quite loudly. Kai used the opportunity to slip himself closer to Ava, sliding his hand across her back. At once, he felt the air shift between them. Her feelings were as easy to read for him as the snow on the pane windows in the great hall.
Comfortable. She’s comfortable, content and safe in me arms.
Trying not to smile like a child who had been given sweetmeats for the first time, he rocked her side to side.
“Trust me,” he whispered. “Aye, it’s a complicated dance, but ye can master it. Just trust me and let me lead ye. And try nae tae be too distracted.” He winked at her.
She snorted under her breath, prompting them both to laugh.
“Ye are always distracting, Kai,” she murmured, the words barely audible at all.
“Then I promise to be on me best behavior.” He couldn’t help teasing her a little first, moving his hand by caressing the curve of her waist before he formally took hold of her arms.
“Ye dinnae ken what best behavior is,” she murmured with a mocking angry look.
He led her into the first movements of the dance. This time at least, she followed with ease, but each touch they shared was somehow more scintillating than the last. They brushed their hands together, the touch too fleeting for his liking. When her hands took hold of his shoulders so he could aid her in a jump, distractedly he thought of the way she had gripped him the night before against the door, when he had explored her with his hand. She gasped near his ear at one point, and all he could think about was the way she had gasped his name.
“Ye cannae make sounds like that,” he whispered throatily as they darted around one another, dancing away, not touching, then coming back together, hand in hand.
“Am I distracting ye?”
“Ye have nay idea how much.”
She laughed in a way he found even more distracting. He twirled her around under his arm, then they came together, hand in hand. It would have been so easy at that moment to bend toward her, to steal a quick kiss. He could feel himself on the precipice of doing it, especially when her own eyes shot down to his lips.
Dinnae torment me, Ava.
“Why is everything always so easy with ye?” she whispered. “So… happy.”
He felt something in his chest break. It would have been too much to tell her, because I am head over heels in love with ye. But his lips parted, ready to say something.
“Ava…” he began.
“Aye?”
“Ah, are we practicing a dance?” Laird Grant’s words made them both jump apart.
Laird MacKinnon woke up at the suddenly loud voice, snorting in his sleep. Lyla looked like a deer caught at the end of a crossbow, her eyes wide on the three of them as she swiped her father with her hand, trying to make him quiet. Thora stepped forward.
“Ah, Laird Grant, there ye are! We are much in need of yer help. We are preparing fer our next Yuletide feast. We were hoping ye would perform a dance with Ava here. Me braither stepped in tae take yer place whilst we couldnae find ye. Off ye go now, Kai. Ye are nay longer needed.” She waved a hand at him, but Kai had no wish to move anywhere. He stayed firmly put, until Thora came and grabbed his arm, dragging him over to the fire with the rest of them. “There, now. Laird Grant, I wonder if ye would dae us the honor of practicing with Ava?” Yet Thora hadn’t even finished the question before Laird Grant had taken up Ava’s hand.
He kissed the back in a rather overbearing and sickly fashion that made Kai want to wretch. The groan he made under his breath prompted both Lyla and Thora to swipe a hand at him.
“Dinnae be too obvious, braither,” Thora muttered under his breath. “Dae ye wish Laird Grant tae ken how close ye two are?”
“He kens we’re good friends. That’s all there is tae ken.”
“Is it?” Lyla whispered, somewhat skeptically.
Kai looked at her with curiosity. If Lyla and Thora had observed something in that moment, was it possible that when Laird Grant had walked into the room he had seen the same thing?
Yet Laird Grant was so animated with Ava now, drawing her into what was practically an embrace as they danced, Kai quickly shrugged off this thought. If Laird Grant had suspected something, surely he would not be so intimate in appearance now.
Ava and Laird Grant practiced their dance so many times together that Kai grew sick of the sight. He sat beside Laird MacKinnon, sharing a flagon of mead, though Thora took the cup out of his hands more than once.
“Ye have had enough,” she whispered to him so no one else could hear.
“I heartily disagree. Sometimes a man needs assistance with his forbearance.”
“And ye think mead helps forbearance?”
“It certainly dulls pain, aye.” He took the tankard back from her, much to her frustration as she sighed loudly.
He had nearly finished the tankard when Laird Grant and Ava returned to their side of the room. It could have been in Kai’s imagination, but he thought that Ava looked a little more wooden in his grasp than normal. She certainly wasn’t smiling anywhere near as much.
“I have an exciting task fer ye all,” Laird Grant declared. “Consider it me treat, a custom from me clan, if ye will. It’s tradition fer me family tae play a little hunt at Yuletide. Somewhere in the snowy grounds of this castle, I have hidden the most spectacular golden cup. The first one tae find it, is of course the winner, and gets tae keep the cup fer a whole year. Who would be interested in playing me little game?”
Lyla and Thora said at once how interested they would be, as did Ava, much to Kai’s frustration. To his shame, he kept trying to catch Ava’s eye, but she seemed intent on only having eyes for Laird Grant at that moment.
“What dae ye say, Kai?” Laird MacKinnon prompted him. “I’m too weary fer such games, but I’m sure ye’d enjoy such a thing.”
There seemed something strange about the idea to Kai. Though tale of such a thing had reached his ear from the scouts and spies he knew in other clans, but with so many faces now looking at him expectantly, there wasn’t much he could do to refuse.
“I’d be delighted tae play.” He put down the tankard and stood. “When dae we begin?”
“Now.” Laird Grant took Ava’s hand. “I’ll go with ye tae begin. I wish tae make sure ye are safe in the snow, me lady.” As he kissed her hand, a dreamy look took over Lyla’s face and Kai grunted under his breath. It was quickly silenced by Thora who elbowed Kai’s rib so sharply, he thought she might have actually succeeded in cracking a rib.
“This is absurd,” Kai muttered to himself as he walked the snowy grounds. He trailed through tracks he had taken many times through the MacKinnon woods, though they were nearly unrecognizable now in the thick snow. “Why is he making us dae this?” He swept aside a branch as he moved off the path.
There were no clues as to where this cup was hidden, and with grounds this extensive, they surely would not be searching for days, but weeks in the effort to find this elusive cup. Kai had a feeling that Laird Grant had introduced this hunt with quite another aim in mind.
As Kai remembered the way that Laird Grant had kissed Ava’s hand, a shudder came over his body, as if a clump of snow had fallen off a tree branch and fallen down the neckline of his tunic.
I ken why…
He could picture Laird Grant now leading Ava through the trees so that they were completely alone. He would undoubtedly take the opportunity when alone with her to kiss her, to press her against a tree, perhaps lift her skirts as Kai had done the night before. The thought infuriated Kai so much that he swiped out at a tree branch beside him, angrily snapping it in two.
It was not the only snapping sound that echoed nearby though. Kai looked around, expecting to see Thora or Lyla in the snow, searching for the cup. Yet there was no one. Behind him, he only saw the footprints that he had left behind in the snow.
Deciding it was perhaps just an echo of him breaking the branch, he walked on, stalking off a little faster now through the trees. He even considered walking straight back to the castle and giving up this ridiculous hunt as a hopeless job. He peered into old trees he knew were cavernous, perfect hiding spots for such a golden cup, but there was no hint of anything being tucked away inside.
Then a crunch sounded behind him. Kai didn’t look around but pretended to still be searching the inside of a hollowed-out tree, as his hand slipped beneath his cloak, reaching for the sword blade that was tucked away in his hip.
One suspicious sound his imaginative mind could have invented, but two had to be something more. He waited on tenterhooks, straining to hear another sound.
Then it came, another crunch of snow, this one much closer, perhaps just a few steps behind him. The swing of metal through air made a loud whistle. Kai bent down, narrowly avoiding the blade as it lodged itself in the tree.
Kai rolled away through the snow and scrambled to his feet, looking around to see the wielder of that sword. Dressed head to toe in black, the man’s face was impossible to make out. Not only was a cloak pulled firmly over his face, but a mask covered his features as well. He tried once to retrieve the sword from the tree, but clearly finding it too well buried in the trunk, he reached for a second, much shorter blade in his belt. This one, a basilard, glinted in the snowy light as he raised it over Kai’s head.
Kai pulled out his own sword and batted the basilard away.
“Help!” Kai called loudly. He was no great arrogant fool to think it wise to continue to fight alone. The fastest way to end this and capture the culprit who had tried to kill him was to get help. “Guards! Over here! There’s a man with a sword–” He broke off as the masked assailant took another swing at his head with the basilard.
Kai struck out with his own weapon near the man’s legs. Forced to jump back, it gave Kai a split second to scramble away a little, turning madly around. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he tried shouting again.
“Guards! In the clearing, an attacker!” His voice traveled much further this time, though he had to stop swiftly when the basilard was back in front of his face. Too slow this time, Kai felt the basilard cut into his shoulder. “Argh!” he cried out in agony.
Though this time, his attacker made a mistake. He left the weapon still in Kai’s shoulder, meaning that he no longer had a blade of his own. Kai turned to face the masked man, watching the black figure as he backed up, panic clearly setting in.
“Me turn,” he whispered gravely, then lunged forward.
The man was excellent at maneuvering out of the way. He seemed to dance out of Kai’s reach constantly. The one time that Kai made contact was cutting the sword across the man’s stomach. He fell to the ground, and as Kai stood over him, he saw with horrid realization just how much this masked figure had come for battle. Kai had not drawn blood but cut through a heavy amount of padding. The tightly packed wool on the man’s chest was now torn open and fraying, but he was not injured.
Kai raised the blade again, but his moment’s hesitation gave the man what he needed. He grabbed a handful of snow and threw it at Kai’s eyes.
“Argh!” he called again. “Guards!” He could hear them running now. There were mad shouts and whistles as people closed in on his location.
Kai tried to wipe the ice away from his eyes that were now stinging badly. Tears filled them and blurred his vision as he staggered to the side, doing his best to stay standing with the screaming pain from the basilard in his shoulder. In the distance, he saw that masked figure running away. Rather like smoke, he vanished into the bleak white snow.
“Kai? Kai!” a guard called from nearby.
“After him. Cannae ye see him? After him.” Kai thrust a hand in the direction in which the man had left, but as he staggered to the side, losing his balance, clearly no one was going to listen to him for two guards jumped forward to catch him.
“We need tae get him tae a physician. Now,” one muttered to another.
Kai tried to argue. Now was not the time to worry about his health when second, that man could attack another. He had to be stopped. Yet Kai was too weak to put up a fight. He could have sworn he saw stars in his vision as he was forced to stand by the guards. His sword was taken from his grasp and his arms looped over their shoulders.
“Come, back tae the castle,” one ordered.
For some of the distance, Kai managed to walk, but he knew for other parts, he was too weak from the pain and his feet were dragged through the snow. As they reached the castle courtyard, there was a commotion outside the keep.
“What has happened?” It was Ava’s voice. That sound made Kai lift his head, desperate to see her. “Kai?”
Kai noted briefly that there were people all around her. Thora, Lyla, and Laird Grant too. Yet she didn’t stop to talk to any of them. Instead, she launched herself forward, running toward him. She met him in the middle of the courtyard, issuing orders to the guards at once.
“This way. The castle physician will be in his rooms. Come.” Then she laid a hand on Kai’s cheek. “How badly daes it hurt?” His grimace was enough of an answer. She nodded, rather numbly in his opinion, then he felt her hand brush his. It was gone all too quickly for his liking.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Laird Grant talking to Thora and Lyla. Yet his eyes were not on Kai or his injury. His eyes were on Ava as she led the way to the physician’s rooms, a frown marring his face.
Did he see the way she touched me hand?