Chapter Five

Seraphina – "Feminine form of the Late Latin name Seraphinus, derived from the biblical word seraphim, which was Hebrew in origin and meant "fiery ones". The seraphim were an order of angels, described by Isaiah in the Bible as having six wings each."

BehindtheName.com

Sara watched a woman with light-colored hair, which matched her muted yellow petticoat, wail when she saw Jamie on the stretcher.

"Nay! It cannot be. Jamie. My Jamie!"

Her Jamie? Who the hell was she?

"The Macdonalds did this," the woman yelled, and more people rushed up the hill toward them, men with drawn swords, women with knives in their hands, determined to beat back a Macdonald attack. The wailing lady pointed a finger at Sara. "She did this! A trick to wed our chief and then kill us. 'Tis a Macdonald trick."

A prickling of fear spread through Sara. The hatred on the faces of the villagers felt like daggers being thrown at her tethered body.

"She's called the Flame of Dunscaith!" one of the men yelled.

"Seraphina means fiery one," another cried.

"Throw her in the fire!" came from an elderly woman holding a long knife. The words penetrated Sara's inability to move. She might not be able to run to Dunscaith, but she couldn't stay here.

More people were rushing closer from the town. Loathing and shock tightened their faces as they glanced between the church and Sara. Even if her fiery mark prevented her from being loved, she'd still yearned to be useful in sowing peace. However, the looks from the MacLeods showed she'd failed.

Crows cawed overhead, several landing in a tree in the churchyard as if to watch the destruction. Aunt Morag.

Self-preservation pushed her to move. The wind shifted, and the villagers cursed while blocking their faces with their hands and rubbing their eyes at the smoke-sting. I need to run. Shedding the granite that seemed to have imprisoned her, Sara clutched her skirts. Her fingers rucked them up to give her slippered feet room to run. She spun away, leaping across the path leading away from Dunvegan. Sharp pebbles bruised the bottoms of her feet, but she didn't have time to have more than a fleeting wish that she'd worn her boots under her gown. Of course, she hadn't planned to be running for her life on her wedding day.

Plan for the worst.

Her mother's words echoed in her ears with the thumping of her blood. The advice couldn't pertain to the nightmare of that day. Her mother would have been struck mute by her husband's treachery.

Damn skirts! Sara lifted them nearly to her knees as her legs battered against the layers of wool and linen. Her heart pounded with exertion and subdued alarm. Panic wouldn't help her survive, so she stomped it down and focused on the copse of trees to the west that sat between Dunvegan and Morag's cottage. It was blurred in her sight because of the smoke burning her eyes.

Would Morag's crow army and strong oak door be enough to hold off MacLeod thirst for retribution? Rather to die by the sword than the flames. Legs churning along the road, she ducked off the path across the moor, leaping from hillock to hillock in a run that could break her ankle if she didn't concentrate. Her chest burned, and she spit the soot from her throat, blinking wildly as she kept moving.

She didn't dare look behind her, imagining MacLeods swarming after her like angry wasps after she'd trounced their nest. If only she had the wings that Kenan talked of building.

"Seraphina Macdonald!" 'Twas Rory MacLeod, the man who'd seemed so honorable the day before, so brawny and handsome. But he wasn't her groom. He was the brother, the bloody Lion of Skye, and now more than ever, she was his enemy. She kept her eyes forward on the spongy moor. One misplaced step and she'd go down like a ruined horse. "Ye are my prisoner!" he yelled. The steel in his tone made tingles erupt all over her skin.

"The hell I am." She drew even breaths to dispel the sparks in her periphery, but the soot in her lungs made it hard to draw in so much air.

Hillocks on a spongy moor would slow her pursuer. Even the Lion of Skye would have to walk carefully while she reached the forest where the ground was firmer, and the ferns grew thick around old oaks.

The neigh of a horse came from the road at the edge of the moor. Maybe he wouldn't pursue her. "Leave me!" she yelled back over her shoulder.

She heard coughing and then, "Daingead, I will not."

"Go to Hell," she shouted without looking.

"I'm already there." His words weren't shouted, but they carried over the moor where the remaining morning mist floated in wisps over the green.

Sara's sweaty hands clutched her skirts as she hopped to the swollen, moss-covered hillocks where tiny early-summer flowers reached toward the sky. She trampled them, desperate to get away. Her father had abandoned her, left her to face the MacLeods' vengeance alone. She'd always known Walter Macdonald thought little of her, reminding her of her ugliness all the time, but to abandon her…

She hit firmer ground and charged into the woods. The coolness of the shade felt like a wash of refreshing water over her heated skin. Sweet Saint Mary, she wished she had something to wash the fire from her throat. She coughed again, not bothering to stifle the noise as her gaze shifted around, hunting for a place to hide. Because if Rory MacLeod still followed her, she couldn't outrun him.

Brilliant green ferns and fiddleheads grew thickly to the right. Sara veered into them, realizing that she'd lost both slippers on the moor. The cool mud squished between her toes through her once-white stockings. Gathering her blue petticoats, she dropped to her knees in a bunch of vegetation, ducking flat against the earth. She rolled onto her back and used her hands to pull the ferns overtop of her in an attempt to make them look undisturbed. Wind rustled the leaves overhead. Hopefully, any movement in the ferns would merely look like breezes.

Cool mud pressed through the back of her bodice and smock. Before the ceremony, she'd plucked even the smallest piece of lint from her ensemble, but now it was all mud and soot. Her breath came in rough gasps from the smoke and the run. Eyes wide, she stared upward at the small patch of blue sky that peeked through the green canopy of tree leaves high above her and the brighter green, feathery fronds over her face.

"Seraphina Macdonald!" The deep voice was close, making her choke on a breath. There was a growl in the tone, almost like the one her father had when he called her full name. 'Twas why she despised it. The name translated to "the burning one" and was given to her because of the fiery mark across her back. Her mother had said she'd been named after the highest rank of angels, but her father constantly brought up her imperfection, the reason he couldn't marry her off to any ally.

She covered her mouth, swallowing against the cough that tickled, pushing to escape. She waited, barely breathing, willing her heartbeat to calm and the rising cough to abate. But it grew despite her trying to suffocate it. A small thud off to the center of the woods made her eyes shift that way, but she didn't dare move. What would Rory do if he found her? Would he run her through with his sword, justice for his injured warriors and Jamie? Who would care for her young sister, Eliza, then?

"Yer tracks stop here," Rory said and cleared his throat. "Come out, Seraphina Macdonald, or I will come in to get ye."

Get her? What did that mean? Kill her? Rip her throat out? That's what Gilbert used to say about the younger MacLeod brother. That he'd seen him bite men during battle, blood running down his jaw, as if he were truly a lion lunging in for the kill.

Rory coughed again. "I have a flask of ale."

It took her a few seconds to get past the image of the man ripping into someone's throat to understand he was offering her refreshment. 'Twas surely a trick. He knew she was parched and clogged with smoke. But she wouldn't allow him to lure her with ale. The cough inside battered against her, breaking through the slightest amount despite her covered mouth. There was no helping it. Her lungs were desperate.

The ferns brushed aside, and Rory MacLeod's face appeared above her, looking down, blocking the patch of blue sky above. His cheeks were gray with ash and dirt. Blood dried along a cut on his forehead and drops of blood speckled his neck. His cropped waves of hair were wild about his head, and his amber eyes were red from the smoke.

Sara gave into the tickle in her chest, coughing hard. It no longer mattered. He thrust his hand out to her. "Take it."

Fury, gut-wrenching disappointment, and a determination to live mixed to shoot through her spine where she lay in the ferns.

He leaned over her. "Take my hand." His order came through clenched teeth. Did he truly bite people with them? They were white and looked sharp.

But instead of taking it, her thumb slid to the outside of her tightening fist. In a movement like the triggered kick of a hare's back legs, Sara's stomach contracted, raising her upward, and her knuckles punched straight into Rory's eye. Crack!

"Bloody hell." He reared back, and she was up and leaping through the ferns before the words had left his mouth. The pain in her knuckles was nothing over the satisfaction of surprising the man enough to get away.

Unfortunately, the punch didn't slow him. Sweet Saint Mary! He charged after her through the ferns until she felt him right behind her. Instead of yanking her arm or throwing her to the ground, she felt his arms encircle hers, pinning them to her sides as he picked her off her feet.

"Let go." Sara kicked, but devoid of even her useless slippers, her attack did nothing to save her. She twisted with all her might, but he squeezed.

"Stop yer wiggling, woman."

Wiggling? As if she were a helpless worm. But she stilled, realizing her struggles were taking all her energy.

He turned her to face him, his one arm still wrapped around her in a manacle-like hold. She stared into his eyes, gratified to see one pinched closed and swelling.

"Ye were trying to blind me!" he yelled in her face, blinking his other eye as if clearing the smoke from it. There was no overpowering him.

"Go ahead," she said, staring up at him with belligerence despite the shameful tremble that wracked her. "Slice my throat." She'd rather die here in the cool ferns than blistered in a fire. Against the wishes of her rushing blood, begging her to magically grow huge enough to fight him off, she tipped her chin higher, exposing her throat. She looked down her nose to meet his gaze. "May this face, my very eyes, haunt you for the rest of your life, Rory MacLeod."