Page 61 of Fallen
He didn’t want the last thing he ever heard to be Craeg the Bastard’s voice.
Damn his half-brother to hell. He couldn’t believe it had come to this. He couldn’t believe someone had attacked him from behind, had stabbed him in the armpit while his arms were raised.
Despair clawed its way up his throat, yet he fought it. His body ached, and his throat felt as if it were on fire, as if he were lit up by a furnace within. Pain ripped through his chest. Duncan fought it all. For a few moments, he tried to convince himself that he could defeat everything: the sickness, his enemies, death itself.
And then he saw her.
His angel of mercy. His angel of death. The woman stepped up behind Craeg, those vibrant violent eyes fastening upon him.
Coira’s face was flushed and blood-splattered, and her chest heaved from exertion. In one hand she held a quarter-staff, and in the other a dirk. She no longer wore a nun’s habit. Instead, she was dressed as an outlaw.
She’s one of them.
Outrage pulsed through Duncan, its heat puncturing the agony that dimmed his vision. His mouth moved, and he tried to speak. Yet he couldn’t hear if any sound came out.
Suddenly, it hurt to breathe. It felt as if he were drowning.
Duncan reached up, stretching out for the woman, his fingers clawing the air as he imagined they were fastening around her neck. She was just like all the other women who’d disappointed him. His mother. His sister. Ella. Leanna. Traitorous bitches, the lot of them.
Coira stared down at him, a nerve ticking in her cheek. And then she knelt, bringing her face close to his.
Duncan sagged back, his hands lowering. Maybe she was sorry after all. Perhaps she would comfort him.
But there was no comfort for Duncan MacKinnon.
Another woman, her blood-splattered face taut with ruthless determination, knelt down and whipped the dirk from Coira.
The last thing he witnessed before his life ended was the flash of a knife blade.
25
In Yer Debt
“HE’S DEAD.” CRAEG’S voice was flat, disappointed.
“And not before time,” Mother Shona replied. She sat back on her heels, her gaze moving to where both Coira and Craeg stared at her. “The man was a scourge upon this earth.”
Coira gaped at the older woman. She couldn’t believe the abbess had killed MacKinnon. “Mother Shona,” she finally gasped. “I wanted to be the one to slit his throat. Why did ye take that from me?”
The two women’s gazes fused. Around them the battle was dying. The outlaws had finally managed to overcome the Dunan Guard. The remaining MacKinnon men had wisely cast aside their weapons, dropped to their knees, and raised their hands in surrender.
Mother Shona cocked an eyebrow. “Ye think I’ve stolen yer reckoning?”
“Aye, ye have,” Craeg rasped. He was still breathing hard from his fight with MacKinnon. He stared at the abbess, gaze narrowed. “I had a few more things to say to him, before ye interrupted us.”
The abbess huffed. “He couldn’t hear ye anyway.”
“What makes ye sure of that?”
“He had that look dying folk get sometimes. The glazed eyes, vacant expression … I doubt he heard a word ye said.”
A muscle bunched in Craeg’s jaw. “All the same, they were things I needed to say beforeIcut his throat.”
Coira clenched her jaw at his words. Curse them both,she’dintended to slay MacKinnon.
“And that’s why I stepped in,” Mother Shona replied, her voice soft yet with steel just underneath. Her gaze swept from Craeg back to Coira. “Revenge is a poison. I couldn’t let it blacken yer souls. I know what ye have both suffered at his hands, but he’s dead now. Be content with that.”
Coira realized that Mother Shona wasn’t going to apologize. She wasn’t sorry in the slightest.
