Page 39 of Kilted Seduction
He wondered if that was true. “I’ll still look a weak-willed fool.”
“Tell them I threatened tae go out on me own again, and ye fear I’m headstrong enough and willful enough tae do so - and tae getlost and freeze or get everyone else frozen lookin’ fer me if me folly brings me grief.”
Well, at leastthatwas true enough. It didn’t stop him from wanting to pour a sleeping potion down her throat and leave her in their room with an excuse of being ‘indisposed’. But she would fight him, and the last thing he wanted was to have another ‘quarrel’, this time for real.
“Fine. But on yer head be the consequences.”
He took her arm in a grip he knew looked fairly exasperated and led her back to the group of waiting lairds and their men-at-arms. He saw Mac raise an eyebrow and gave his friend a grimace in return before going to Lachlan Ross. “Laird Ross… forgive me fer this… but… me wife… she’s determined…”
As expected, there was some vocal disagreement, some smirks, and some outright sneering from the rest of the men. However, he managed to grit his teeth and present his argument - or rather, hers. Eventually, Lachlan Ross gave him a bemused and slightly exasperated smile. “I suppose one must keep a new wife happy. However, ‘twill be the responsibility o’ yer man at arms tae see her home when she gets weary o’ the day. I trust she understands, her whims may merit her inclusion, but they willnae determine the course o’ the day’s outing beyond that.”
“Aye, me laird. I’ll be sure she daes.”
And with that, they were on their way.
Once they were outside, past the gates, Mac stepped up beside him. “Me laird…”
“I ken. I wouldnae have chosen tae dae this. But ye ken why.” Aedan did not want to mention Thora’s powers where the words might reach Lachlan Ross’s ears. Or cause further comment among the other lairds.
“We’ll just have tae bear with her whims fer now, I suppose.” He gave Mac a rueful smile. “Mayhap ‘twill all be of use later.”
Mac nodded and dropped back to rejoin the other men-at-arms. Aedan increased his pace slightly to match the lairds’ and accepted a flask that was being passed around. It was full of strong whiskey, strong enough that it sent a few of the men coughing, but it warmed the blood. Aedan suspected that most of his fellow lairds thought the warmth was well worth the loosening of tongues and the hazing of wits that came with it.
He wanted to join them, to relax and joke and let himself simply exist for a time. He wasn’t responsible for the group - that was Lachlan’s duty, and that of his woodsmen. And yet, despite his dismissal of Thora’s gift, he couldn’t help watching her intently, watching the way she scanned the woods around her.
There was… something. He couldn’t understand, or make sense of, what it was he sensed, but there was something in her wary watchfulness that made him think of deer watching for wolves. Or prey animals on guard for hunters. There was a sense that she was watching every shadow, listening to every noise, as if her life depended on it.
She’d said that disaster would befall them if she didn’t come. But would it befall them, or her? What was she really afraid of? He didn’t know, but there was no denying that she was watching for something.
They walked for more than a candle-mark, perhaps two, until finally Lachlan stopped the group in a clearing of snow-covered evergreens and oak trees. “One o’ these should do, I think. Unless our lady has a different opinion?”
All eyes turned to Thora.
The danger was growing, it had been growing with every step they took. Thora was aware of the jokes, the sidelong glances, and Aedan’s skeptical silence beside her, but she paid little heed to any of it.
Every step increased the fear inside her and made her guts tighten with wariness. Every crunch of boots on snow, every laugh, every whisper of wind through snow-covered branches - they all spoke to her of danger. Danger yet unseen but real as a wolf’s fangs or a bandit’s sword.
She was so focused on her thoughts and feelings that she almost didn’t notice when they came to a stop in a clearing, or when Lachlan Ross addressed her. It was only Aedan’s huff of exasperation that alerted her to the fact that the laird had, in fact, been asking her opinion. “I…”
A cracking sound like ice breaking startled her and made all of them freeze in place. Thora’s foresight screamed in warning.
Then, with a sharp popping sound, like salt thrown in a fire but a hundred times louder, one of the large old evergreens cracked under the weight of snow and ice and age, cold bursting the sap inside. The tree lurched as the trunk snapped, bark exploding outward, then began to fall.
Straight toward the gathered men, who were too startled, and too hazed by cold and the liquor they’d consumed, to realize the danger.
The half-seen, half-felt vision snapped into place, and she saw the two men who would die, crushed by the falling trunk. Without thought, she dashed forward, feet sliding in the snow. As the tree tilted and began its descent, she flung herself forward, hammering into the men’s shoulders with all the force she could muster.
If they’d been prepared for the attack, or if the ground had been firmer, it wouldn’t have worked. But with the snow aiding her and their own shock keeping them from reacting, both men fell and went skidding across the clearing in a wave of churned earth and slush.
Thora gasped, winded by her own landing, and tried to roll out of the way of the falling tree. She couldn’t see clearly, and she’d skidded awkwardly… where was the tree… where…
Something hard and sharp caught her on the left side and shoulder and slammed her into the snow and mud. Thousands of needles pierced and scrapped at her skin, even through the fabric of her heavy winter garments. Then something heavier and sharper pierced her shoulder.
A branch, broken and sharp as a knife, went through her cloak and dress and deep into her shoulder, as well as cutting a long and jagged line across her upper arm. The pain was white hot and agonizing, and she bit her lip on a scream and tried to roll away. But she was pinned, and the tree was still falling.
Something caught her across the forehead, a blow like the one time she’d been unlucky enough to get clipped by a thrown rock during one of her brother’s rougher games. The shock and pain of it was too much for her, and Thora’s thoughts vanished like smoke in the wind as her mind spiraled into darkness.
The last thing she heard before awareness abandoned her completely was the sound of someone shouting something that sounded like her name.
