Page 56 of The Beast's Bride
“Just end this, Buchanan,” MacLeod called out. “Stop showing off.”
But Connel didn’t heed the chief. He continued to dance around the maddened boar, sticking it and prodding it until the creature huffed and wheezed.
“Stop him,” Rhona muttered. She enjoyed a good hunt, but she didn’t like to see senseless cruelty. The boar was in pain and confused. She wished her father would step in.
Tussock shifted, as Taran urged him forward. “Connel.” His voice lashed across the glade. “Finish it.” Yet the warrior didn’t heed him either.
Connel danced around the boar once more, sticking it again in the flank. With a shriek of rage, the creature turned on him. Heedless of pain, of the spear now stuck in its side, it lunged. The warrior staggered back, his grin slipping—and tripped.
In an instant the boar was on him. It gored him repeatedly, in a frenzy of fury and pain. Connel Buchanan’s screams echoed through the trees.
Moments later Gordon brought it down with a spear to the back of the head.
Taran leaped down from Tussock and rushed to Gordon’s side. Dughall joined them, and together, the three men heaved the dead boar off Connel.
“Rhona!” Taran called out. “We need yer help.”
Swinging down from Lasair’s back, she went to them. Rhona was no healer, yet she was the only woman in the party; the only one who had been taught to tend wounds.
She knelt at Connel’s side, bile rising in her throat.
One glance and she knew it was bad. The léine and plaid braies Connel wore were now crimson; the tusk had sliced through leather and linen like a knife through curd. Blood pumped out of wounds to his stomach, groin, and upper thigh.
Rhona swallowed. The tusks had pierced an artery. Connel was bleeding out over the ground.
With trembling hands she ripped the hem from her léine and started to bind it around the wound to Connel’s thigh. It was hopeless, but she had to do something.
Face pale, blue eyes wide, the young man stared up at her. He wore a startled expression as if he couldn’t believe this was happening to him.
A twig snapped behind them, and Rhona glanced over her shoulder to see that her father had dismounted and now stood behind them. His bearded face was thunderous as he stared down at Connel.
“Chief,” the warrior rasped, staring up at him. “Ye were right … he was a wily bastard.”
“Aye, lad,” MacLeod replied, his expression softening. “He was.” His gaze shifted down to the young man’s injuries.
Rhona tore her gaze from her father and looked back, at where her hands pressed into the wound she’d just bound. Red stained her hands. She couldn’t staunch the bleeding.
“Close yer eyes, lad,” the chief rumbled, his voice softer than Rhona had heard it in a long while. He knelt at the warrior’s side, taking hold of Connel’s hand. The sight made Rhona’s throat constrict. Her father could be fierce, brutal even, yet he inspired loyalty in the men who followed him for a reason. “Rest now.”
The man did as bid, his eyelids flickering. His face was the color of milk. Long moments passed, and around them the forest glade went silent. The men bowed their heads as Connel Buchanan died.
Rhona splashed water on her face and inhaled the scent of rose. The perfume soothed her, dulling the sharp edges of the day she’d just passed.
A senseless, reckless death.
It was difficult to mourn the passing of a callow youth she’d never liked, yet the violence of Connel Buchanan’s demise would haunt her dreams in the days to come. Rhona shook her head to clear the memory of the blood and gore. She picked up a square of linen, drying her face.
She emerged from behind the screen to find her husband already abed.
Taran lay on his back staring up at the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his head. A deep groove cut between his eyebrows, giving him a fierce look.
“Ye are angry,” she observed, approaching the bed.
“Aye,” he ground out. He didn’t look her way, but continued to stare up at the rafters. “The dolt had his whole life before him.”
Rhona gusted out a sigh and sat down upon the bed. “Ma used to say that reckless young men are always the first to die.”
He inclined his head to her then, a humorless smile curving his mouth. “She was right.”
