Page 10 of Rebellion's Fire

“I’ve no idea where I am or where to go. I know you’d find me by daylight.”

“Before,” he said, shifting position as if the light from the fire bothered him. “Besides, you could hurt yourself in these hills.”

“And I could be eaten by a wolf,” she said dryly. “I understand.”

With what she hoped was cold dignity, she lowered her shoulder to the ground with her head away from him and, shrouded in the blanket, stared into the fire. From the corner of her eye, she could just make out his still figure continuing to sit there, gazing not at the fire but in the vague direction of her bundled feet. She doubted he saw them.

She’d spent most of the day far too close to him. Right now, he was the most familiar thing in her new, unknown world. Perhaps that was why, with his unlooked-for and dreaded presence, she finally relaxed and felt her eyes begin to close. For whatever reason, Adam MacHeth wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t hurt her. At least not yet. As exhaustion took hold and the fuzziness of sleep began to invade her bones and her mind, she was aware of a bizarre and surely misleading sense of protection.

Must be the blanket, warm and comforting…

Her eyes flew open again. The blanket smelled of Adam MacHeth.

She should know. She’d been in his saddle, practically in his arms all day. Although she couldn’t quite place it, his scent was distinctive, something clean and herbal beneath the usual male smells of horse and leather and sweat. The heat of embarrassment spread through her body, barely noticed because it seemed suddenly important that the blanket hadn’t come from Cailean after all, but from his lord.

She shifted, as if in her sleep, trying to watch him unobserved. Slowly, his face turned toward the fire. The flames leapt, casting an orange glow across his skin, reflecting fire in his strange, unquiet eyes. They didn’t blink but seemed to glaze. He smiled, almost as he had once before when they were riding, the sort of smile that eclipsed the glow of the fire.

Her stomach twisted. Prophets were said to read the future in flames. What didhesee there? She listened to the relentless beat of her own heart until her eyes gradually, reluctantly closed once more, and she slept.

*

She couldn’t breathe.Acrid smoke filled her nostrils, her throat. There was roaring in her ears, unbearable heat everywhere, pain she barely noticed for her terrifying lack of breath. Through the swirling, smoky darkness was a blaze she knew shone brighter than the sun. Fire.

No, dreaming of fire. Again. She opened her eyes to the campfire, now burned away to a faint glow in the darkness, and scrambled to sit up, her heart still drumming with the old fear. At once a hand closed around her bound ankle.

She froze, stunned. Beyond her feet, Adam MacHeth’s arm stretched out from under his covering blanket. Either someone had covered him in the night or he’d fetched his own bedding. Somewhere it chilled her that she’d slept through either happening. His fingers burned through her stocking, depriving her of breath. She was afraid to move.

Without releasing her, he pulled himself forward and sat up. It brought him face-to-face with her, only inches between them. His eyes seemed to boil.

Oh, dear God, help me…

His eyelids swept down, covering the blinding gaze. He took something from his belt. A dagger. Fear surged afresh, but he moved too fast even for verbal reaction. He leaned downward, his wild hair falling across his face. The hand on her ankle moved to the binding rope, which suddenly loosened and fell.

He rose to his feet without looking at her and walked away.

“Awake, gentlemen,” he said without raising his voice. The men began to stir at once, a movement that seemed to spread across the camp like a large, gentle wave. “Let’s go and get Donald.”

*

Christian was soconcerned with her captors, that she stopped paying the attention she should to her surroundings.

The MacHeth men had prepared with dizzying speed, rising, rolling their belongings into saddle packs on their strong little horses, and mounting for departure as the first gray light began to shade the sky.

Cailean had appeared at her side, handing her an oatcake in return for her blanket—Adam MacHeth’s blanket—though he gave her no peace to eat it, instead urging her toward the front of the gathering, snorting horses.

Cold without her blanket in the chill of the not quite breaking dawn, she’d been boosted once more into the saddle of the same horse and felt the physical arrival of Adam behind her.

It said much, she thought wryly, that she’d actually been pathetically grateful for the surrounding warmth of his arms and body as the horse plodded on over paths she couldn’t see through passes between low, dark hills.

Without warning, Adam MacHeth said, “Why did you describe yourself as disgraced?”

Christian blinked. “Because the world does.”

“What did you do?”

A soothing friendship, foolishly overvalued through loneliness and made ugly by accusation, violence, and death. And guilt. For although her mind knew she’d done nothing wrong, her heart agreed with William that it was all her fault.

Her lips twisted. “Nothing.”

---