Page 50 of Dark Side of the Laird
Emma
Idon’t know how many minutes went by but it felt like an hour. No hours! I sat in bed, nerves jumping and every little sound had me reaching for the blade buried beneath me. I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stop the racing, panic-filled thoughts going through my mind. Staring into the flames of the candle only reminded of that tiny speck of light coming from the keyhole.
Why was it taking so long for Agatha to find Ewan and Isabella?
I let out a frustrated groan and rubbed my hands over my face. If I didn’t hear something soon, I was going to go batshit crazy.
Commotion came from the courtyard. Muffled calls, nothing more, but it still made me pause. My hands stilled beside me on the comforter and I cocked my head, listening. Waiting. More of the same.
Had they found Ewan?
My stomach plummeted with a sudden fear as to what they’d found. Ewan was the only one who could help me—Logan had said so himself, and now…
Okay, stop!I couldn’t let myself continue down that line of thinking. Maybe he’d just waltzed in and that was what the commotion was about.
I rushed from the bed and ignored the weakness of my body. Pure adrenaline propelled me forward. I yanked the shutters open and stared down at the crowd of clansmen forming a walking circle around something as they brought it inside. Icy wind swirled through the open window, ruffling my hair and nightgown, but my skin burned so hot, I barely felt it.
Four warriors carried a makeshift stretcher made from large tree limbs and someone’s plaid. On top of the stretcher was a prone body. Golden blond hair and a broad brow peeked from beneath a plaid that wrapped tight around a man. There was only one man at Gealach with hair like that.
Ewan.
It was definitely him. I felt it deep in my bones. The same sense of loss encompassed me as it had when I lost my brother the decade before. Like a piece of me was dying with him. My eyes were wide, glued to the eerily still body of the only other man besides Logan that I trusted.
Was he…?
His head rolled the side. Either from his own movements or the jostling of his men. But I took hope that he was alive. Badly injured, but still.Please, be alive!
No way I was staying here to wait for someone to come and tell me what had happened. Even if I had to crawl on my hands and knees toward the great hall, I would. I had to know how he was doing, what the prognosis was. He needed a hospital, a doctor, anesthesia and modern treatments. And he wasn’t going to get it.
What had Isabella done? Instinctively, I knew she was the one to blame.
Not bothering to put on a robe, I wrenched open the door, uncaring at the shocked look on my guard’s face.
“Ewan is hurt,” I said.
Instead of ushering me back inside my chamber, where most people thought I belonged, the guard lifted me in his arms and hurried toward the stairs.
I held on to the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders as he took the stairs down two at a time.
They’d laid him on the table in the great hall, arms splayed out at his sides. The plaid blanket had been rolled down to his waist as they examined his awful wounds. His linen shirt was torn, showing his flesh shredded and bloody beneath. Blood seeped still from his wounds, creating red polka dots on the floor. He’d been attacked. Viciously.
His eyes were closed in blessed unconsciousness. I stared at his chest, willing it to rise, and it did, but weakly. He was still alive.
The crowd of clansmen parted for my guard, and he carried me up to the table, setting me gently down. Tears blurred my vision and I blinked them back, not willing to let them impede me this time.
After lifting the arm closest to me back to his side and indicating for the blustering fool on the other side to do the same, I pressed two fingers to Ewan’s neck, checking his pulse. It was faint, which I’d gathered given the tremendous amount of blood he’d lost. He needed a transfusion—something the people here would have never heard of, and I had no idea how to do it.
The world, my world, this world, was crumbling down around me in a pile of steaming shit.
“Where’s the healer?” I shrieked, hearing the desperation in my voice.
Agatha pushed through the people, coming to my side. “She’s coming, my lady.”
“Where did they find him?”
“On the beach.”
“How did this happen?”
