Page 64 of Dark Side of the Laird
Soft hands fluttered over me. A woman’s hands. I kept my eyes closed, waiting for the hallucination to leave me. I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to see her and tell her we’d never be together again.
I was dying.
Only reprieved from execution when my torturer was called away. But he would return. He’d promised to. And then he’d resume what he’d started, and hopefully, I’d lose consciousness before he really gutted me.
Sawing sounds came from my wrist. Good God, the man had chosen to dismember me first. Not woman’s hands at all, but my mind’s way of coping with the pain of my new reality. I felt the pressure, waiting for the blade to begin its cut into my flesh.
But the waiting was too much.
I did open my eyes then, turning to the side to witness what he was doing. To meet his eyes with defiance as he attempted to unman me. I wasn’t going down like that.
But it wasn’t the man!Emma, I shouted in my mind what I couldn’t say aloud as only a grunt passed my lips.
“Shh,” she crooned as she cut away at the leather straps, freeing my hands.
It was working. That could mean only one thing—she was actuallyhere. How had she made that happen?
A rush of painful tingles centered in my palms and fingers once the leather snapped open. So tight had the bindings been, it was an amazing rush of relief to feel them gone, enough so that I was able to ignore that sudden rush of agony.
I flexed my fingers, wincing in pain at the few that had been broken.
“We’ll get ye out of here and then I can work to bind your wounds, my laird.” The old crone spoke that time. I flicked my gaze to find her sawing at the bindings near my ankles. The women whispered in hushed, panicked, tones.
“I dinna… want it,” I growled at the old woman.
They stilled their motions and she flicked her gaze up at me. “Ye dinna want to be free?” she asked.
Emma, too, looked completely stricken.
“I dinna want to be king,” I somehow managed to say, though it sounded foreign to my ears.
“As ye wish,” the old woman said, then continued to help Emma with the bindings, and I didn’t resist, trusting that even if the old woman didn’t want to hear my desires, Emma would.
The same familiar and painful tingle rushed up and down the arches of my feet when she finally got them free.
“We must hurry,” the old lady said. “Most of the king’s prisoners will be set free, but not ye, my laird. The executioner has his eye on ye for a treat. Come, lass, we must help him up.”
Gentle hands on either side of my shoulders tried to lift me, but though I’d been beaten and starved for nearly two weeks, I was still a large man.
The women grunted with exertion, and I did, too, intent on sitting up on my own. I tried to balance on my elbows, to use my core muscles to sit up, but nothing seemed to be working right. I was as weak as a bairn. Even a lamb could walk within minutes of being born, and I couldn’t even sit up.
The women pulled and pushed at me gently, never failing in their insistence that the deed would be done, though I wanted to order them gone. To forget about me. At last, I was sitting.
Emma gasped at the sight of my back. I didn’t even want to know what it looked like. For they’d whipped me severely, and no one had come to tend those wounds, which were likely infected.
“His shirt, lass. Stop gawking or we’ll never get it done.”
The women tossed a shirt over my head and put my arms through it. They swept the fabric softly over my back, and still I hissed.
Emma gasped. “Logan! I’m so sorry…”
I grunted, tried to smile, but I was afraid it came out more like a grimace.
Not bothering with a plaid, they pulled my legs over the side of the table and stuffed my feet into braies, hose, and boots.
“Ye must gather your strength, my laird. Ye must stand,” the older woman said.
“Wait, hold onto my shoulders.” Emma took my arm and flung it across her back and shoulders and helped as I worked hard to hoist myself onto my feet.
