Page 33 of Scot of Desire
Splashing back, Bran bobbed in the water.
His arms were now numb, his body practically incontrollable. He could see exactly why Ilyssa had been unable to pull herself from this water. Anything more than a few seconds in these depths, and their bodies were shutting down because of the cold. He took a shaky breath above the water, but his lungs wouldn’t fully inflate now. It was a small, trembling, almost non-existent breath. He saw flashing stars in front of his eyes and raised a hand, rubbing his eyelids to try and dislodge those stars.
“B-Bran?” Ilyssa called to him from solid ground, her voice still stammering in the cold.
“Bran?” Tad reached out to help Bran now. “Come on, take me hand. Any longer in there and ye’ll die of the cold.”
Aye, ye are right.
Bran pumped his arms as best as he could, fighting that numb sensation. He managed to pull himself to the thick icy edge and plant his palms onto the ice. Gritting his teeth, he pushed his body up and over the edge. Tad reached out and grabbed his shoulder, dragging him the last distance across the ice.
They fumbled together before Bran dropped down on the shingle, breathing heavily.
The air didn’t warm him. He was freezing, his whole body dithering as his eyes shot around him.
The boys were all crowded around one of their friends, the smallest boy, who was now crying madly. Tad was dragging his jerkin off his own shoulders and threading it across Ilyssa’s body, trying to keep her warm as she trembled and knelt down beside Bran, her legs plainly giving out beneath her.
“What were ye doing?” Tad asked wildly in anger. “Ilyssa, ye could have died.”
“The boy.” She gestured toward him over her shoulder. “He would have died, had I nae…” She trailed off, the cold taking over again as she buried her face in the edge of her brother’s jerkin.
Bran blinked, trying his best to keep Ilyssa in view, but those starbursts had erupted again. He couldn’t feel his hands, or his feet. He looked down at his open shirt. With so little clothes on, it was hardly a surprise that his body was succumbing to the cold so fast.
“Bran?” Ilyssa reached down toward him. When he couldn’t reply and just stared back up at her, those beautiful eyes of hers widened. “Tad – I think he’s going tae pass out. Quick get something tae warm him up.”
Tad looked at Bran, his expression not dissimilar to his sister’s before he turned and ran from the shingle shore.
“Bran, Bran,” Ilyssa whispered, bending down toward him. She bent over his body. He longed to reach up a hand and brush back her sodden hair from here face, to be able to gaze in those eyes clearly and see that she was safe.
Nay harm will come tae her. I’ll never allow that tae happen.
“Bran, ye stay with me, aye? Dinnae succumb tae the cold,” she begged, her voice still shaky, though not as bad as before.
He managed to make his numb arm work. He raised his hand and trailed his fingers through her hair, cupping her cheek. Her lips parted as she leaned into his hand. He could feel the very edge of her lips against his skin. It was both sensual and tender, but that warm feeling was slipping away fast, like sand beneath his fingers.
Those starbursts vanished and the darkness engulfed him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gilroy could still feel the rage thundering through him. Yet he was not an active man when it came to such rage. Solid like stone, with his hands feeling heavy like granite, he stayed fixed in his chair as he looked at Laird Tad in his room.
So close. We were so close tae losing her.
Gilroy released a short breath he had been holding, determined to keep his true feelings of rage as masked as he possibly could. One quick glance toward his son, Cillian, who sat on the edge of the stone windowsill nearby told him all he needed to know about his son’s feelings on the matter.
Two days before, their plans had nearly come to an end.
“Well,” Gilroy cleared his throat and began to speak, doing his best to keep his voice level. “How is Lady Ilyssa doing?”
“She is much recovered. She has her full strength again, and she is restless. Ilyssa has never been one for following orders and staying in her chamber,” Laird Tad said with a small smile, though it was fleeting. He sat in a seat nearby, staring at his booted feet beneath him rather than Gilroy. “As fer Bran…”
I didnae ask how yer friend was feeling.
Yet Gilroy kept the snapped and angry thought to himself, merely raising his chin a little higher as he listened.
“The fever hasnae yet broken. We have moved him tae his chamber now, and he sometimes wakes. The healer hopes he will recover soon. Ilyssa is constantly at his side.”
Gilroy exchanged an uneasy look with Cillian.
