Page 78 of A Highland Healer Captured
Zander—
Thank you. For your son’s breath. For the room you made mine. For trust I didn’t earn, and for patience I didn’t ask for. I go because I must. There’s a lass whose name keeps me from sleep every day that I stay. Keep the boy warm and in theair. Mind the cups. Tell him the kestrel’s tail is wrong on page nineteen.
—S
Her throat closed as she laid down the quill. The last letter bled where a tear had dampened the ink. She folded it once, left it in the center of the desk where his hand would fall.
Skylar lingered, palm pressed flat against the wood, as if she might feel his warmth there. The silence pressed back against her ears.
She wanted—God, she wanted to stay.
But want had never saved a soul. Duty might.
She lifted the satchel, squared her shoulders, and left the study door ajar behind her. The celebration roared outside, loud enough to hide the sound of a heart breaking.
Her feet turned on their own down the passage she knew best. One more thing. She could not take the road without touching the boy she’d held on the edge. She owed herself that theft.
The solar door stood on the catch the way Katie kept it, a finger’s width of invitation. Inside, the banked fire was friendly, the air warm with wool and sleep. Grayson lay on his side, cheeks flushed from too much joy, lashes dark on his face. Skylar felt her chest loosen just for seeing.
“Katie?” she whispered, stepping soft. Her eyes taking longer to adjust to the darkness than she anticipated.
Then she saw it.
The shape on the floor near the hearth.
It was strange, and in a way wrong.
Skylar dropped to her knees so fast she jostled the stool. “Katie?” The name came out strangled. She had her hands under the woman’s head before sense had finished warning her.
Warm. Thank saints. Warm.
But slick blood pooled black at the back of the skull.
“Katie, hen, stay,” Skylar ordered, slipping from gentleness to command as if she’d stepped across a line drawn on stone. She snatched the shawl from the chair, pressed it to the wound. “Stay with me. Daenae try to rise. Where —”
A shadow shifted by the bed.
Skylar’s eyes snapped up.
A cloaked figure stood over Grayson, one hand outstretched toward the boy’s blanket. The hood hid the face, but the shape and the intent was clear enough to freeze her blood.
She didn’t think.
She moved.
The dirk Zander had given her was in her palm before the thought finished forming.
She lunged.
“Get away from him!” Her voice wasn’t hers; it was iron.
The stranger jerked back, cloak swirling. Skylar slammed the table with her hip, so that the cup toppled, bouncing to the floor with a hollow clatter. Whatever poison had been meant, it spilled harmless.
The figure struck at her, fast and precise, fingers like steel. They grappled in a desperate, silent blur. A stool went over with a loud crash; a tin clattered against the wall. Grayson stirred, whimpered, and Skylar’s heart split even as she fought.
The cloaked head jerked forward, a brutal knock to her cheekbone.
Stars burst behind her eyes. Skylar reeled but answered in kind, her skull cracking against cloth and bone. The stranger faltered just enough; she caught an arm, twisted. Wiry strength met her stubborn leverage. They crashed to the floor, rolling across the rug.
