Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

“ Y er money. Now.” One of the bandits demanded, holding out his hand to Kai and gesturing wildly with the short dirk in his hand.

“Ye willing tae risk yer life tae come and get it?” Kai said, twirling the broadsword through the air just once. “Aye, as ye wish.”

The man was confident, approaching with the dirk, but the two men either side of him were afraid. Kai could sense it on them, like a foul stench. He went for the confident man first. The stubby dirk was knocked to the snow in seconds. Kai used the hilt to drive into the man’s stomach, then elbowed him down across the back of the head. Spluttering on the ice, he fell face first, winded, squirming around feebly.

Kai turned his attention on the other two who were now backing up.

“Ye want tae take the risk? Eh?” Kai barked at them. Together, the two turned and fled, struggling to run through the snow. “Aye, leave with yer tail between yer legs! Ye cowards.”

Kai kicked out at the fallen man who was groaning wildly, clutching to his wounded stomach.

“Remember this,” Kai warned, using the blade to cut across the man’s cheek. “Every time ye look in the mirror, ye’ll see this.” He formed a perfect T on the man’s cheek, for thief. “Then remember I was good enough tae let ye live. Go.”

Kai didn’t even bother watching the man leave. His attention had been caught by one of the two men who had gone after Ava. One was struggling to get around Kai’s bucking horse. Kai approached quickly, just as the man brought up his sword. It took two lunges and one strike across the back of the head to disable the man. He fell to his knees, whining like an injured pup.

“Leave. Or I’ll finish the job,” Kai warned.

“Nay. Nay!” It was Ava’s voice.

Kai had to grab the reins of the horse, pulling the stallion to the side and trying to stop the constant bucking to see what was happening.

Ava, the forever undefeatable warrior, was on the ground in the snow. Kai had seen her cut down men without even thinking about the effort to hurt a man twice her size. Now, she looked almost small, paralyzed, as the man above her flicked open his cloak, reaching for the laces of his trews. His hand around her wrist he used to pin her chest into the ground.

He wouldnae…

Yet Kai didn’t even need to finish the thought to see what the man intended to do.

Burning with rage, he threw the reins aside and approached the man’s back. With the broadsword outstretched in front of him, he sliced it across the bandit’s back.

An almighty roar of pain erupted, making the wind stop whistling for a minute, as if cowered by the sheer amount of noise. He staggered away, releasing Ava’s wrist, allowing Kai to bend down and grab her other hand, pulling her up to stand in one jerky movement. Ava flung herself around Kai with a sob. Then, as if suddenly recovering, she pulled the basilard from her belt and held it high, ready to fight if needed, but he stood between her and the man.

He willnae get near ye again.

“Take another step forward, and I will kill ye,” Kai warned threateningly.

The man was clutching his bleeding back, the shock of red startling against the the ice white snow. There was something sadistic in the small smile that stretched across his lips. He took a step forward.

Kai moved toward him. He had every intention of running the bandit through with the sword when an arrow whipped between them, burying itself into the snow and forcing them both to step back.

In the distance, just visible as a shadow in the snow, another of the bandits had fired it.

“Run. Run!” he was ordering his friend. “Run now.” He raised the bow again, showing exactly how he would kill Kai if he went after the man.

As fast as Kai could blink, the man dressed in black turned and fled, running after his friends, streaking the snow with blood behind him. Kai didn’t dare turn his head away from the spot where the men had disappeared into for some time. He had to be certain the bandits were not coming back. The smell of fresh blood made his nose curl as he slowly turned to face Ava.

“Ava?” he whispered, nervous to speak.

Her whole body was shaking from head to toe. She didn’t even look him in the eye as she stood still like stone, the basilard raised over her shoulder.

“Ava?” he murmured her name again, moving to stand directly in front of her. She jerked her head around to face him, though her eyes were distant, rather glazed. “What has happened tae the warrior woman, eh?” He tried to lighten the mood as his hand wrapped around her own, lowering the basilard down to her side. “They’ve gone, Ava. They’ve gone.”

Yet it was as if his Ava had gone along with them. She was a shell, speechless, staring into the middle of his chest as her hand shakily returned the blade to her belt.

Kai had faced battles with Ava, fighting alongside her more than once, and she had never shown such fear. This was different. This Ava had emotion coming off her as if it was a waterfall. Fear wasn’t even enough to describe what she was clearly feeling. The word came to Kai in an instant as he tried to take her hand.

Terror.

She pulled her hand away, apparently confused to find Kai beside her at all.

“Ava, it’s me.” He acted on instinct, moving his hands to her waist, as he had been holding her seconds before they attacked. To his relief, she didn’t brush him off again, but stared up at him, blinking multiple times as if she was finally realizing who she was standing before. “They’ve gone. They cannae hurt ye now. He cannae hurt ye now.” He added the ‘he’ as an afterthought, but this seemed to break through to Ava more than anything.

“Aye, I ken that.” She bristled and shrugged her shoulders, backing up from him so that his hands dropped from her waist. “We… we need tae get some help. Me horse, Kai. It’s wounded and willnae be able tae ride far.” She was being practical, eminently so as she moved toward the mare and tried to bind the wound with a strip of tartan.

“It’s nothing, ye ken,” Kai said as he followed her, taking hold of the reins of his own horse and smoothly stroking his neck to calm him down.

“The wound is substantial.”

“That’s nae what I meant. I meant what just happened, Ava. We all freeze in battle sometimes.”

“That’s nae what happened.” She stood straight, sudden fire in her eyes. He knew that ferocity of old. It was one of the reasons she had first wormed her way under his skin. He was addicted to how passionate she could be. “I didnae freeze. I just… I couldnae reach me weapons.”

A lie.

Yet he didn’t argue with her. He nodded, pretending to believe it.

Once the horses were calm, they made a plan. They would take her mare to the nearest village and leave her there in a stable under the care of a groom to see if she could recover. They would ride on together, using just Kai’s horse.

As they reached the village, silence seemed inevitable. Kai arranged for the horse to be looked after then returned to his steed to find Ava standing beside the horse, wringing one hand repeatedly around the other wrist. Kai stood before her, clearly startling her for she had been so lost in thought. When she looked tempted to jump back, he gently prized her fingers off her wrist.

There, burnished across the skin, were the red marks the bandit had left upon her.

“What he tried tae do–”

“Dinnae say it,” she barked so quietly, he almost missed it. “I dinnae want tae hear it, Kai. Ye understand?”

“Aye, I understand.” He slowly brushed his fingers against the red raw marks, needing her to know that he would be gentle, that he would never hurt her as that man had hurt her. “It will never happen tae ye,” he whispered urgently and lifted her hand to his lips.

“What dae ye mean?” She watched, apparently transfixed as he hovered her hand in front of his lips.

“Any man who tries tae dae that tae ye, I’ll kill him fer it. Ye’ll always be safe, Ava. I’ll make sure of it.” He couldn’t resist. He gave in to every temptation, to show her just how much she mattered to him and kissed the back of her hand, then he lowered it fast, not wanting to reveal to her just how much such a simple kiss had truly meant to him.

There was the briefest of nods from her, but it wasn’t quite a smile.

Kai found it impossible to concentrate on their journey. Between feeling Ava pressed up against his back as they rode, the wild snow around them, and everything that had passed with those bandits, he wasn’t thinking about where the horse was going or even hearing the grunts the stallion kept making in his frustration at riding in this weather.

He marveled at the feeling of Ava’s body against his own. The strength she had, the curves, the muscle, those long legs that hung down on either side of him… Her whole position made him think of her spreading her legs around him if she had been in front of him, instead of behind.

Dinnae think such things.

He shook his head, ashamed that he could let his thoughts become so sexual when clearly, she had just been so terrified by such thoughts.

As they rode on through the snow toward Dunvegan Castle, the light fell quickly. They went from a bright white mountain range to a grey and dusky forest, the snow looking dull and murky as the night drew in.

“We’ll have tae camp fer the night,” Kai broke the silence eventually.

Ava lifted her head up from where she had been resting it between his shoulder blades.

“Where?” she whispered. “We dinnae want bandits to find us again.”

“I ken a place. I ken this forest.” It may have been harder to traverse in this weather, but he had spent so many years as a scout for his clan, he knew it well. Turning the horse toward a particularly thick clump of trees, he made his way toward a cave nestled on a hillside. There at least, they would be protected from the driving snow and wind.

As they grew nearer to the cave, Kai’s mind began to race. Ava had placed her head on his back again, her hands buried in his cloak. She was so physically close and yet emotionally, she felt a great distance away. He may have been able to sense all that she was feeling - the fear, the sadness, the shame that she hadn’t been able to defend herself - but it was not the same as having her talk to him.

“I dinnae want this tae be yer future.” The words broke free of him as he brought the horse to a stop in front of the cave.

“What dae ye mean?” She lifted her head once again.

He lifted his leg over the horse’s head, swiveled and jumped down, turning to face her as she still sat upright in the saddle.

“What that man tried tae dae –”

“I said I didnae want tae talk about it, Kai,” she hissed in anger.

“If ye marry a man ye cannae love, a man ye dinnae even like… the chores of the bedchamber will be horrid tae ye.” He had to say it. He had to be certain she knew what she was letting herself in for. “I’d sooner see ye married tae a man ye wanted tae share yer bed with, Ava. Nae one ye are marrying fer the sake of duty.”

“When it comes tae marriage, it will be entirely different.” She jerked her head up, abruptly looking quite like the daughter of a larid. She was imperious and fully in control. Sweeping her blonde braid over her shoulder, she ignored the hand he offered her to help her down and jumped off herself, landing in the ice. “Ye dinnae need tae worry about me, Kai. I’m perfectly capable of looking after meself.”

“I have never doubted that.” He busied himself with seeing to the horse as she marched toward the cave. “It will never stop me trying tae protect ye, though,” he called after her, aware that his words made her halt in the mouth of the cave. She turned back to face him, her eyes wide.

Disbelief.

The word hit him as if it was another arrow that had been fired by those bandits, straight into the center of his chest. It was plain enough that she didn’t believe him.

“Ye think there would ever be a time where I wasnae there tae help protect ye?”

“Women cannae only rely on the protection of men,” she spoke somewhat snidely.

“What does that mean?” With the horse settled under a bank of branches as shelter, he moved toward Ava in the mouth of the cave. She held her ground, her cheeks reddening. It was a blotchy sort of red, as if she was holding back tears.

I cannae remember the last time I saw her cry.

Then it hit him. It was many years ago. They had been children at the time and Ava had fallen, hurting her leg. Kai was the one who had helped her back up again. He had hidden her face so that their siblings didn’t notice she was crying, for she plainly feared being belittled for it.

He closed the distance between them and raised a hand. She stared at him curiously, but didn’t move back. He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, ready to wipe away those tears if she allowed them to fall, but Ava was as stubborn as she was good hearted. She clearly refused to let them fall.

“Ava, what dae ye mean?” he whispered, pressing her again to tell him something, to let him in on her pain, not because he wanted to know, but because he wished to help her.

“Because nay man can be there all the time tae protect a woman. We need our own strength too.” She backed away from his hand, letting it fall between them, then turned and strode into the cave.