Legacy of the Mist Clans Box Set (93 page)

The horse whinnied again, and Mairi peered around Connell’s shoulder. The remaining knight was not as close as she had feared, now about twenty paces away. He seemed to have checked his pace riding over the rocky streambed, letting the older knight take the lead. That decision had given Connell an easier opportunity to kill the first knight, and now that he was dead, the lone rider appeared hesitant to approach.

The remaining knight did not wear a helm, only a chain mail coif. He appeared young, perhaps newly knighted. He didn’t have whiskers on his chin, as was the style of so many knights right now. He took one look at Connell and yanked his mount to a stop. The horse reared in protest, but the rider focused on the dead man at Connell’s feet.

As Connell and the knight glared at each other, Mairi glanced again at the dead man. He was older, his skin weathered, his full beard almost completely gray. She briefly wondered if the younger knight had been his squire at one time. If so, she would expect the young man to demand vengeance for Connell killing his benefactor.

Connell’s chest heaved as he fought to catch his breath, but his sword never wavered. He never looked away from the young knight, as if daring him to use his advantage of horse and charge.

Mairi knew from experience that even atop a horse when facing Connell, the rider did not possess as great an advantage as one might believe—others had lost their lives for that mistake.

The young knight growled a curse. He focused once again on the dead man at Connell’s feet, then glared at Connell one last time. He yanked on the reins and hauled his horse around, spurring it in the other direction.

Connell moved, his right hand reaching for his belt, but he stopped when his fingers encountered nothing. He looked down in confusion, and Mairi remembered his biodag was buried in the skull of a mercenary.

“Bloody hell,” Connell snarled as the rider made good his escape.

Mairi staggered against him, her knees trying to buckle. She wanted to sob in relief. Her terror still clouded her thoughts, and the world threatened to start spinning. She realized it was because she couldn’t catch her breath.

“I’m sorry . . . I shouldna have run . . .”

“’Tis all right, lassie,” Connell murmured. He turned his attention fully to her, and the battle rage left him. The change that she witnessed in him was as night was to day. He gently pulled her to his chest. “I’ve got ye. ’Tis all right. I’ve got ye now.”

HHH

Connell kept Mairi from collapsing into the dirt. She was shaking so hard she could barely hold on to Adam. She made strangling noises, trying to breathe and sob at the same time, and Adam wailed piteously. But fury still coiled within him as he looked over his shoulder and watched the English knight gallop away, growing smaller against the lowland scrub. His jaw tightened as he muttered another curse at his own folly. He hadn’t made an error like that in a long time, forgetting his biodag in a dead man’s skull. Because Connell had left the weapon out of reach, the bastard was escaping with his life. Connell knew he would only gather others in order to hunt them again.

“Connell,” Mairi whispered as trembling fingers touched his cheek and she tried to turn his head away from the escaping man.

“Damnation.”

“We’re safe.” She tugged a little harder.

“I willna have ye in danger.” He had vowed to protect her and the bairn she was wet nurse to but loved as her own, the bastard son of Edward II. And he had. Connell’s blade had defeated every threat brought against her. No matter if that threat had come from Robert the Bruce seeking to use the bairn as leverage against the English throne, or those in England loyal to the memory of a dead king, Edward’s father, Longshanks, who would not tolerate a bastard vying for the throne of England. Longshanks had died a pair of months ago, but many in power still tried to carry his wishes through and sought to slay Adam.

“We’re safe because of ye,” she said firmly, her voice growing steadier, but she still trembled against him.

The bloodlust still pounding through his body pushed his desire to go after the bastard, to turn the tables and become the hunter, but Connell knew he could not leave Mairi and Adam unprotected. He knew, but that didn’t curb the desire, and his body quivered with the power of it.

“Connell, look at me.”

He refused to turn his head, even though he could no longer see the escaping knight.

“Connell, please. The change that comes over ye when ye fight terrifies me.”

Her words caused the last of the bloodlust to leave him, and he turned his head to look at her. Was that the reason why she so quickly ran from him? He never, ever wanted to be the reason for her fear.

Her beautiful face was much too pale for his liking. Her dark eyes searched his, shimmering in the growing morning light with unshed tears. His breath caught in his throat, and the blood roared in his veins—but for an entirely different reason. The first rays of dawn alighted on her face. Wisps of her long dark hair had escaped her braid, a braid that was as thick as his wrist and descended to the middle of her back. The light played on her dark hair, glowing a soft, burnished red as the wisps danced around her face in the morning breeze.

As she searched his gaze, he saw the fear in her eyes fade. Her fingers continued to caress his cheek, and her lips finally lifted. “There,” she whispered. “My Connell has returned.”

Her
Connell?

He didn’t understand why, but her words provoked a tempest within him. All he wanted to do was sweep her into his arms and kiss her. Caught in her gaze like a fly in a spider’s web, he could not move, he could not look away. He focused on her lips, and his head lowered of its own accord. Mairi didn’t flinch or back away. His heart thundered against his ribs.

Wee Adam’s cries finally reached his ears and Connell froze. The bairn had been crying the entire time, but only now did Connell truly acknowledge the sound, and the noise brought with it agonizing memories that nearly drove him to his knees. For an instant, another face hovered in his vision, a woman who once loved him, lost to death. Adam’s squalling melted into the memory of similar sounds of another infant, William, his only son.

The memory changed. William was a ten-year-old lad, and Connell battled to hold him as his body shuddered in convulsions. But no matter how hard Connell fought to keep his son with him, he had failed. He had lost William to the same illness that killed his mother.

Connell reared back his head and staggered, trying to shove the memories away.

“Connell?” Mairi’s voice sounded tiny and distant.

“Forgive me,” he whispered and wiped the sweat gathering on his brow with the back of his hand, but he still fought to breathe, he still fought to shove away the visions. He focused on the body at his feet; the blood and death was the only thing strong enough to silence the painful memories of his past.

“Are ye all right? Ye werena injured?”

“I be fine,” he said but shook his head, still trying to clear the cobwebs. When they struck, the visions of his past were so powerful he always struggled to rid himself of them. When would they stop? Would they ever stop?

A tiny voice screamed in his heart, begging for mercy, begging for the memories to leave him alone.

He felt a small hand grip his. He blinked as he realized it was Mairi’s hand, so delicate and fragile when compared to his own calloused palm. But she gripped his hand with surprising strength, and it was that strength that chased away the last of the visions. He drew a deep, cleansing breath into his lungs, and his body finally stopped shaking. “Thank ye, lassie,” he murmured as he squared his shoulders.

A pace away was a large boulder. He dare not let her out of his sight right now, so he guided her to it.

“Sit,” he said. “Calm Adam.” He started to step away, but she stopped him.

“Connell—”

He looked at her again, and the sorrow rose within him, sorrow that he knew what he wanted but also knew that he dare not reach for it. This time, it was he who gently traced his fingers over her cheek.

“Ye ken what I must do, and I willna have ye watch me perform such a gruesome task. Turn yer head away, lassie, and see tae yer bairn.”

She blinked up at him, her eyes filling with tears again, but she did as he asked and turned away. Connell’s jaw tightened, and he strode to the first body to search it for valuables and any information he could glean.

But there was more to this task, and more bodies awaited him at their camp. A mercenary or two might yet cling to life. Many would call it a mercy killing, bringing death quickly to end the bastard’s suffering. But for Connell, mercy had nothing to do with it. Of any who attacked them, he would leave no one alive in his wake. He turned his head again and stared at the empty horizon. Except for the one who had just managed the impossible.

HHH

Mairi tried to concentrate on calming Adam, but her thoughts spun. She forced herself not to look at Connell, knowing he did not wish her to witness his gruesome task. But shame that she had again caved to her fear and ran grew, right along with her worry for him. Each time he was forced to defend them, he lost a little bit of himself to the enraged warrior he became when wielding a blade.

When not threatened, he was a gentle giant, their guardian and protector. But he had built such walls around himself that Mairi barely knew the man buried inside. He kept himself apart from everything and everyone, especially her.

And Mairi feared that one day she would lose him completely to the warrior. That the gentle giant who stood guard over her and Adam would never return.

She did not know why he became the man he did when he fought. She had not asked for his oath to protect them, but he had pledged his sword to her of his own free will.

“Why should I trust ye?”
she had asked him.

“There are still some good people in this world. Ye must believe that, for when ye stop is when yer hope is lost.”

And that’s what he was—a good man, one who stood before her with his sword no matter the odds, just as he had done moments ago. He had taken the duty upon his own shoulders simply because it had been the right thing to do, and he couldn’t turn his back on that.

But now she feared she was in danger of losing that good man.

Why?
Her thoughts kept returning to that question, and try as she might, she could not answer it. They lived in a time of war; many men fought, bled, and died, but not all became the warrior Connell became, not all had a side that emerged when threatened that was dark and terrifying.

Not all could have defeated the threats he had faced either. When the odds were at their worst, when she was certain they would be slain, Connell rose above it and seized victory where there was none to be found.

The warrior he became enabled him to do that, but Mairi was witnessing the price it cost him as he retreated deeper into himself. The gentle giant was as a drowning man, gasping for air as the current threatened to pull him under. She’d be damned if she lost him to it. Because of that, she made to him a silent promise. She would never run again. He needed her by his side to pull him back.

She stole a glance at him as he cut away the knight’s belt pouch and rose, a grim set to his jaw, his spine stiff and his blue eyes bleak.

He looked at her and hesitated, tilting his head curiously. “Lassie?”

“What?”

He gazed at her a moment longer. “There’s a look in yer eye that I’ve ne’er seen before. I didna ken if I was in trouble or no’.”

She felt her lips tug upward. This was her Connell. Although she briefly wondered what right she had to call him that. They had shared many things since he became her protector, but not once had they ever shared a bed. Yet he had indeed returned, and she was determined to hold on to him with all her might. He had sacrificed so much for her and Adam. She owed him this small bit at least.

“Ye no’ be in trouble,” she said, and her smile grew. “No’ yet anyway.”

A low chuckle rumbled through him, and she was very glad to hear it. He hardly ever laughed—he hardly ever even smiled.

“Give me a bit,” he said as he strode toward her and held out his hand. “I be certain I can find my way into it.”

She took his hand and he helped her to her feet. Adam had finally calmed, resting his head against her shoulder and sucking on his fist, but he grunted and fussed softly.

“How be the wee lad?”

“He’s fine, Connell, but he’s still upset.”

“I canna say I fault him for that.” He hefted the pouch he had cut from the dead knight. “Definitely English, and I dinna think he was hired by the Bruce or anyone else for that matter. He had all his papers with him. If hired for such a dire job as relieving us of our heads, they shouldna carry anything that could easily identify them.”

“So they just stumbled over us and decided tae attack?”

“They stumbled over us, aye, but as tae the rest, I dinna ken. He might have been loyal tae Longshanks’s memory and thought Adam’s bastard lineage would muddy the claim tae the throne.”

Mairi shivered. If those in power didn’t wish to use Adam as leverage, they wanted him dead.

Connell looked up at the sky. It was fully morning now and the day rapidly aging. “We need tae keep moving. At least Edinburgh be only a day away now. Once we reach it, we’ll lose ourselves in the crowd.”

A sudden unexpected fear gripped her heart, and she stopped short. He wouldn’t take her to Edinburgh and abandon her there, would he?

Connell had started to stride away but hesitated and turned around when she didn’t follow. He frowned for a moment and shook his head. “Now that look I recognize, and ye ken better than that, lassie. I will no’ throw ye tae the wolves. We will maintain our charade as husband and wife.”

“But what will we do, Connell? How will we live?” She followed him as they returned to their camp and the bodies of the other men he had slain. He yanked his biodag from the dead man’s skull, wiped the gore from it, and returned it to his belt. As if remembering she stood behind him, Connell glanced pointedly at her, and she obediently turned her back, sheltering Adam from the gruesome sight. After a moment, she stole a glance at him over her shoulder. He cut a pouch free from the leader and opened it.