Page 80 of Her Highland Prophecy
Diana had run headfirst into his would-be assassin, ramming into him with her slight body and then falling onto Gordain when she bounced back. The man had startled at her yell and turned to attack her, but she had been quicker than him, pushing him off balance and giving Gordain the opportunity to find his bearings again.
“Gordain!” she exclaimed, her hands running over his torso, even as she let out pained little gasps.
He pushed her grimly behind him, just in time to avoid the knife being plunged in her back. He could tell that she had been injured in some way, but he wouldn’t be able to check until the man in front of him was no longer a threat to them.
With renewed determination, he set about to avenge his father. The assassin was good, better than most, but he was no match to Gordain who was being fueled by both rage and grief.
It was almost too simple after that. The next time the man came at him with his sword, Gordain ducked neatly under the blow, turning his body at the last moment to place himself behind him. The man tried to pivot to face him but he was too late. Aiming with his knife for the soft spot just below the ribcage that he knew could kill a man in just a few minutes, he stabbed upward.
The knife found its mark and with a high-pitched screech of pain the man fell to his hands and knees, the sword dropping from his hands as he reached back to stem the flow of blood, but Gordain knew it was too late for him. The puddle of blood around him was growing steadily larger, even as the ground below them began to absorb it.
Gordain stooped down and lifted his face up by the neck.
“Tell me who sent ye,” he demanded, but his only answer was a slightly demented smile and eyes that were glazed over with both pain and the realization that death was coming for him.
“Never,” the man hissed through clenched teeth a second before his entire body went slack in Gordain’s grip.
29
Gordain pushed her back against the wall, into the shadows as the door to the tavern opened to let out some men. Diana scarcely dared to breathe lest they be noticed, burying her face in his bloody shirt to mask the sounds of her harsh breaths. The entire last hour seemed like a bizarre dream and it is wasn’t for the throbbing pain in her arm she would have dismissed it as such.
After Gordain had killed the man that was attacking them, they had both frozen for a minute, staring down at him. Diana wasn’t sure how to proceed. It had not been the first time she had seen Gordain kill someone — the highwaymen who had attacked her when she first arrived had had that first honor — but she had not truly been alert during that altercation.
It was all too real now, though she could scarcely fault him for it considering the man had attacked him with a sword.
Diana was becoming more and more certain however that there was something else going on. Gordain seemed to be tense and he had barely spoken two words to her since they left the clearing beyond verifying that she was not too hurt. What could that man have said to cause her typically stoic and outspoken Highlander to react like that?
She stroked his side soothingly as he held her closely to hide from the passing group of people and he looked down at her. His eyes were burning as they met hers, holding a depth of pain that she had never seen in him before. She wished they didn’t have to be silent so that she could talk to him about it, but fear that someone had seen them enter the woods where the body would eventually be discovered kept both of them quiet.
She didn’t know how they would find their way back to their room, but she trusted him to have some idea if he brought them back to the inn, rather than staying in the forest.
“I dinnae ken if there was someone else with him, Princess,” Gordain murmured into her ear a moment later, so low that even she could barely hear him with their bodies touching from ankle to shoulder. “So ye need to walk through the tavern and intae the room and then open the window for me. I’ll climb up the side to get to ye.”
“You’ll be seen!” she hissed back, incredulous that he was even considering something like that.
“Nae. Our room is over the kitchens, at that window over there, see?” He pointed out the window frame just over the farthest end of the courtyard, in the corner where the stables and the kitchen met.
“How do you know that?”
He looked surprised at her question.
“I looked out the window when we arrived,” he said simply, and she gaped at him.
She would have never even thought to do something like that, but it did seem like the smart thing to do, and it definitely benefitted them in this situation.
“Just walk to our room?”
“Aye. They willnae be looking for ye if they found him dead. They wouldnae think that I would leave ye alone, so nay one will bother ye if ye act as if nothing is amiss.”
Diana nodded at his words, swallowing through her suddenly dry throat. Gordain placed a soft kiss on her forehead before releasing her and pushing her slightly in the direction of the tavern.
She stumbled a bit at the sudden loss of his body and the wall behind her but regained her balance quickly and walked into the busy tavern with one last look to where he was hiding in the shadows. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she knew that he had not taken his eyes off of her.
The inside of the tavern was noisy and loud, the smell of food and unwashed bodies washing over Diana as she walked into the door. She lowered her head and crossed the room as slowly as she dared. She had to mentally restrain herself from running, but she knew that it would garner her more attention if she did.
She arrived back to the room without incident, besides an elevated heartrate. No one had seemed to pay her even the slightest bit of attention. Even the innkeeper was engaged with serving ale to his patrons and did not even look up as she passed by.
Throwing the bolt to bar the door, she raced to the room’s window and opened it to the night air, looking around for Gordain. It took her a moment to find him but even then, the only reason she could was that she knew to look for him.
