Page 12 of In Bed with a Highland Beast

“Nay,” Lucia said, drawing in a long, heavy breath. “Will ye calm down? The plan is the same as always. We infiltrate their ranks,we find the man who killed me braither. But in order tae dae such a thing, we must prove our worth tae them first.”

“What?” Alaric asked, leaning forward a little in an attempt to look at Lucia in the eye, even as she stared straight ahead at that forest. “What dae ye mean? How will we prove our worth?”

“I told ye,” she said. “We will attack them. We willnae hurt them, we’ll simply steal some o’ their supplies an’ incapacitate any guards we see.”

Lucia certainly made it sound very simple, though Alaric knew it was anything but. Surely, there was a better way to infiltrate the gang than stealing from them and tying up their men. That plan was bound to get them both killed before they had even properly set it in motion.

“I dinnae think this is a very good plan,” Alaric insisted. “We should wait an’ observe them, an’ then we can speak with their leader.”

“Ye dinnae ken how these things happen,” Lucia said, craning her neck to look at him over her shoulder. “I dae. So I suggest that ye listen tae me an’ dae as I tell ye.”

Alaric couldn’t help but wonder how, exactly, Lucia seemed so confident, how she knew what would work and what wouldn’t when trying to infiltrate the ranks of a gang of mercenaries. How much was she hiding from him? How much more did he have to uncover to reveal her real self?

The more he thought about it, the more he realized he truly knew nothing about the woman in front of him, while she seemed to know plenty about him. Would she answer him if he asked? Would she tell him the truth? Alaric couldn’t possibly be certain about anything.

“We wait fer nightfall,” Lucia said, in a tone that implied the matter was decided, as she led the horse farther down the path, this time leisurely. “An’ then we attack.”

Lucia’s breath fogged in front of her in the chilly night air. The sky was filled with thick, dark clouds that concealed the moon and the stars, along with her and Alaric’s presence in the camp. Just as she had expected, the men in the clearing were Ravencloaks; she could tell by their signature black cloaks, the uniform all of them bore at all times—and by the fact that she recognized some of their faces, having seen them before.

A part of her wanted to make them all pay for her brother’s death. They all deserved the same fate, after all; none of them was innocent. But she reminded herself to be patient, to take all her grief and pain and use it in more productive ways.

If she killed those men now, her brother’s true killer would never get what he deserved. The rest of the Ravencloaks would kill her and Alaric, and her brother would never be avenged.

Patience. They will all pay fer what they did tae him.

Tucked behind thick bushes, Lucia and Alaric observed their targets. There were three men who guarded the camp, standing watch, and the odds seemed much better than Lucia would have thought before getting to the clearing. Three men were nothing. With Alaric by her side, they could have taken on twice as many.

And now Alaric was truly by her side, the two of them plastered together once more. It was strange, she thought, how often they ended up so close when they hardly even knew each other. Had it not been for the mission, she would have welcomed this closeness, perhaps even sought it out on her own, but now it was only a distraction.

This is fer Ronan. ‘Tis nae fer me.

Ronan was watching her, she knew, and she had to make him proud. She had to make this one shot count, because there wouldn’t be another one.

Silently, Lucia gestured at Alaric to deal with the man who stood nearest to them. She was shorter and slighter, so creeping to the back of the camp to attack the one standing watch there would be easier for her than it would be for Alaric. That would only leave the one standing watch near the first line of trees, and as long as she and Alaric were quiet with the other two, she doubted he would manage to subdue them both.

Nodding, Alaric slowly moved towards his target, while Lucia made her way towards her own, her footsteps silent in the night air. She didn’t have the luxury of time and so she couldn’t wait and see if Alaric would follow her directions and do as he wastold. She simply had to trust that he would, and that he would succeed.

Lucia approached the man from behind, holding her breath as she got closer and closer. By the time she raised her knife in the air and hit him on the back of the head with the handle, he hadn’t spotted her. There was nothing he could do to avoid the aftermath. The hit was so hard and well-placed that within seconds, he was crumbling in Lucia’s arms, and she struggled to keep him upright before laying him down gently to avoid any commotion.

When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that Alaric had already dealt with his target and was slowly moving towards the last guard. Curious to see what he would do, Lucia remained hidden and watched him as he used the same technique to subdue the last man, promptly hiding him behind another thicket. When Alaric looked up to search for her, Lucia popped out of her hiding spot and approached him silently, the two of them grabbing two sacks of supplies each.

“We should tie them up,” Lucia whispered.

“Why?” Alaric asked, voice just as quiet.

“Why nae?” she asked. “Just tae show we could.”

Alaric gave Lucia a disbelieving look, but she only shrugged and rummaged through the sacks, her hand soon emerging in a victorious arc with a length of rope in its grasp. In a rush, she abandoned the sacks and walked over to the three men, draggingthem closer to each other on her own, until Alaric finally gave in and helped her. With the two of them working together, they had the men tied up against each other and gagged in no time, and they returned to the sacks, Lucia rummaging through them once more in search of something for them to eat, only to come back empty-handed.

“What now?” Alaric asked, still whispering. “What dae we dae?”

“Now,” said Lucia, as she sat by what remained of the fire, the last embers glowing bright orange, “we wait.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Wake up, lads! Wake up!”

The jarring shout of an unfamiliar voice startled Alaric out of his stupor. He and Lucia had been waiting by the fire for a while by then, neither of them speaking, and at some point, he must have fallen half-asleep, his mind drifting into nothingness. The man’s call, though, was more than enough to wake him and when he looked at Lucia, he found her staring at the burning coals, as if her gaze had never left them all this time.

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