Chapter 17

17

Mary’s breath tore in her lungs as she fled through the forest, barely able to see what was ahead of her through the canopy of trees on either side. Her legs were screaming with pain, begging her to stop, but she knew that if she slowed, she might give Archibald a chance to catch her.

She had slipped from his grip next to the river, and rushed off into the forest, trying to put as much distance between them as she possibly could. When he caught her again, he would not wait to deliver the killing blow, and she knew that the sharp edge of his knife would bury itself in her guts before she had a chance to protest.

With every step, she felt as though she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, the pure hate for her that burned in his eyes when he gazed at her. She could not believe that she had fallen for his pretence of kindness. Looking back, it seemed so obvious to her now that no man would have shown her such gentleness, or given her the secrets that had plagued this place for so long, if he was not getting something out of it herself. She had been too quick to trust, and now, she was paying the price.

All at once, as she ran, she felt a sharp weight across her chest. She stumbled and fell, the breath knocked from her body, and reached for something to grip onto in order to drag herself back to her feet.

But before she could, she felt a hand at the back of her neck, yanking her to a standing position with a rough motion. She gasped and scrabbled at the person who had managed to get her in such a grip, but there was no pushing them off. He had clearly been waiting a long time to get his hands on her, and he would not stop now that he had her.

“Aye, there ye are, lass,” Archie’s voice sneered to her, through the darkness of the canopy of trees above them. “You gave me quite a chase.”

“Let me go, please,” she begged him, her voice bubbling over with panic. “Just let me go. I’ll go back to the Keep, I’ll tell them nothing of you, I’ll say I left on my own accord, and?—”

“Keep yer mouth shut,” he ordered her as he pushed her back against a tree. “And dinnae move.”

He shoved her against the thick trunk of an oak behind her, and used some fabric torn from his cloak to bind her to it. She wondered, for a moment, why he did not just kill her on the spot, but then she noticed that he wasn’t holding his knife. He must have dropped it at some point during the chase—sparing her for a few more moments, though she did not know if the reprieve would be anything other than a stay before her execution…

She struggled against the bindings around her wrists, where they had been secured behind the tree. She wanted to cry out, but she didn’t know if anyone would even hear her, not out here. Had they come looking for her already? Or did they think she had fled of her own accord, and left her to it? She didn’t know, and the thought of being abandoned here completely—of being left to die in the woods, where Archibald would use her death to spark war between her husband and her family—it was almost more than she could take.

Swallowing hard to try and moisten her throat, she watched as he made his way back through the forest, his eyes pinned on the ground, muttering something as though irritated that he had to go back and forth with all of this. He just wanted her dead. The thought sent a sick shiver down her spine, the feeling of it digging into her skin. He wanted her dead. Nobody had ever wanted to kill her before, and knowing that she likely stood no chance of escape made her feel ill. She tried to cry out, but her voice was so hoarse from the running that she could not make a sound…

Then, all at once, she heard something. Her ears pricked. It sounded like… it sounded like footsteps. Though not Archibald’s. No, they belonged to someone else, she was sure of it, someone else who was swiftly closing the distance between them. Her heart leapt. Could it be…?

“There she is!”

A familiar roar cut through the forest, sending birds fluttering from the near-bare branches around her. She gasped. It was!

“Kiernan!” she tried to cry, but she could hardly speak. At last, though, she saw it: his figure, cutting through the trees, followed by a handful of men—one of whom she recognized. She squinted into the darkness. Arran? What was Arran doing here?

Kiernan rushed towards her, seemingly unable to pay attention to anything else around him. To her horror, though, she saw Archibald rounding on him from behind. Her eyes widened, and he seemed to register the expression on her face just in time to turn and duck from the blow that Archibald aimed at his head with his newfound blade.

“Archie!” Kiernan yelled, as he rose back to his feet, his hand on his sword. “What the hell do ye think ye’re doing, man?”

“I’m doing what needs tae be done,” Archie snarled at him as he raised the blade again, the cold, serrated edge gleaming like teeth in the dim light.

“Taking her?” Kiernan demanded. “Ye think that’s what I needed you to do?”

“I think this Englishwoman has put you under some kind of spell,” he sneered, taking a step closer to Kiernan. Mary could see his hand grip a little tighter to the hilt of the blade, but he was still reluctant to bring it from its sheath. This man, after all, had been his friend up until very recently. It must have been painful for him to see him betray him in such a fashion, and she could feel the doubt and the disbelief coming off him in waves.

“Fer a man like you, to marry an Aitken?” he continued, shaking his head. “I’m doing you a kindness, lad. Disposing of her, so you can find a more suitable bride?—”

That seemed to be the last straw for Kiernan. He drew his sword, and, like a beast untamed, flew for Archibald at once.

Mary gasped as she saw her husband throw himself at the man who had tried to take her. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. All the distance between them, all the ways that Kiernan had tried to pull back from her in the time that they had been together, only for him to fight like a man possessed when someone so much as suggested he would have been better off married to someone else?

She felt someone tugging at her bindings, and glanced around to see Arran standing just a few feet from her.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him, as he quickly undid the knot that Archie had created around her wrists. He shook his head.

“He needed help,” he replied, as though it should have been obvious. But, as she stared at him, she knew his choice to come here had not been about Kiernan. It had been about Amelia. She must have received the letter that Mary had sent to her, and now, she had sent her husband to make sure she came home safe. A swell of emotion threatened to overtake her. Arran was hardly the most expressive at the best of times, but she knew that his decision to aid Kiernan in his time of need was a profound one.

As soon as he had undone the bindings, Mary rushed towards Kiernan and Archibald. Arran caught her arm in the split second before she could throw herself into the fray.

“Stay back!” he warned her. “He means to kill ye!”

She had almost forgotten that Archie had plans to end her life. In that moment, as she watched Kiernan throw himself into their battle, all she cared about was making sure her husband was safe.

Kiernan drew his blade back and swung it at Archibald, and the older man lifted his dagger, catching the edge of Kiernan’s sword in the jagged teeth that glinted in the light. Kiernan let out a growl of fury, and pulled his sword away again, swinging it low at Archibald’s legs, but he managed to dodge to one side to send it crashing into the trunk of a tree, where it was briefly stuck, leaving Kiernan frozen to the spot.

Mary’s heart flipped in her chest when she saw Archibald round on him, pulling the dagger back and leaping for his turned back. Kiernan, though, seemed to sense his onslaught, and he threw his shoulders back, knocking Archibald off-balance and sending him staggering, giving Kiernan a chance to pull his blade from the tree and turn to face him once more.

It was then that Mary caught sight of his eyes, the almost-mad look in them, as though he was utterly lost to the rage and fury that Archibald had drawn out in him. But it wasn’t just his betrayal, she was sure of that. No, it was because Archibald had threatened to take her from him, and he was not going to let it happen, not for anything.

Kiernan, his face still blazing with rage, turned to Archibald again. The older man had struggled to regain his balance, but Kiernan showed no mercy. Using the tip of his sword, he knocked the dagger from Archibald’s hand, sending it crashing to the soft earth below, and, just as Archibald dropped to his knees to retrieve it, Kiernan brought his sword to the tip of his throat.

Archibald slowly lifted his hands, acknowledging that he was caught. The way the blade looked against his neck, Mary could tell that all it would take was the barest twitch of Kiernan’s hand to draw blood, to send his head falling from his shoulders.

“You tried to kill my wife,” Kiernan told him, slowly, almost thoughtfully, as though he could not very well make sense of it himself. Archibald looked up at him, defiant.

“And I’d do it again, to save you from yerself,” he snapped back. “If your father could see you, so in thrall to an Aitken, an Englishwoman, no less?—”

“You have no idea the kind of woman she is,” Kiernan snarled, and Archibald’s eyes flashed with anger.

“You planned to destroy the Aitkens,” he reminded him, fury bubbling into his voice. “You married her because ye—because ye ken that they stand in opposition to you, to yer father! All those years, and they never capitulated to him?—”

“And maybe capitulation isn’t what I need.”

Archibald shook his head slowly.

“I’d have done ye a service, putting that creature out of her misery,” he muttered. “Force a confrontation with the Aitkens, and then finally, this would all be over with?—”

“And you think you get to make that call, aye?” Kiernan demanded, flippant. “You think ye’re the one who rules this clan?”

“I think I knew yer father well enough tae know?—”

“My father would never have stood for a traitor like you in his midst,” Kiernan replied, cutting him off before he could say another word. His tone was almost eerily calm, a stillness settling around them, like the very forest itself was waiting to see what he might do.

“A traitor?” Archibald replied, a note of amusement to his voice. “You’d call me a traitor without so much as putting me to trial, would ye?”

“I dinnae need to go to the effort,” Kiernan replied. “You’ve admitted it yerself. You tried to take her from me. And the penalty for that kind of treason…”

He pressed his blade a little harder against his neck.

“Is death.”

“Then kill me,” Archibald challenged him. “If you so dare. Kill me, if you think she is worth such?—”

“Such what?” Kiernan asked him, silencing him all of a sudden. “If she’s worth such what, Archibald?”

“Such betrayal of yer own flesh and blood.”

A small smile creased Kiernan’s face, and he dropped down, pushing his head close to Archibald’s for a moment.

“I choose the flesh and blood I welcome into my clan,” he told him. “Ye were lucky my father accepted you fer so long. But now? Now, I formally rescind his invite. Ye’re nae welcome in this clan anymore, no traitor is. And ye said it yerself, the price for treason…”

Archibald parted his lips to protest.

Before he could even finish what he was saying, Kiernan drew his sword back, and swung it against Archibald’s neck. Mary gasped and drew her gaze away just in time to avoid the sight of his beheading, but she could still hear the dull, wet thud of the sword slicing through his neck, and then the sound of his head hitting the ground.

When she dared to open her eyes again, Kiernan was striding towards her, his sword cast aside, his face spattered with blood. For a moment, she did not know what he intended, drawing in so close to her, but then, he grasped her around the waist, and pulled her against him, so tight it was as though he never wanted to let her go.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” he breathed in her ear, his voice shaking. “If I’d thought fer a moment that he would—that he might try to?—”

She clasped her hands around him, squeezing him close to her, breathing in the scent of him. For all that she had been confused about what he wanted from her, whether he truly desired her or not, he had made himself clear, once and for all, with what he had done tonight. He had killed the man who had tried to take her from him, the metallic scent of his blood still on Kiernan’s skin, and she knew he would have killed a hundred more if it meant he could hold her in his arms, as he did now.

“Let’s get you back to the Keep,” he murmured against her neck, his voice full of warmth that she wasn’t sure she had ever heard from him before. But she knew, in that moment, that he would never deny her that warmth again. The walls between them had finally crumbled, and the man she had been waiting for him to be had finally shown his face.

As she breathed in the warm scent of him, she promised herself that she would never let him go, not as long as she lived.