Page 56 of Rebellion's Fire

Sigurd all but sagged in gratitude and relief. Especially when he saw that Cailean mac Gilleon was right behind him, his normally good-natured eyes glittering with righteous fury.

Sigurd knew what was expected of him. “He hit her cold at Tirebeck, but she’s conscious again. He hasn’t harmed her further. They’re resting just ahead by the burn.”

Adam nodded in the darkness as if he already knew. Which, possibly, he did.

“Is it Fergus? How did you get here so fast?” Sigurd blurted. At least he kept his voice low.

“Oh yes. And I was already on the way back when I met your messenger. Cailean came with me. Come on. Let’s go and fetch her.”

“How many men do we have?”

“Just us,” Adam said.

Ahead, bathed in moonlight, Cairistiona and her abductor sat side by side and appeared to be talking together in friendly enough fashion.

What the hell was going on now? Sigurd glanced at Adam to ask, but the words dried in his throat.

Adam looked as he’d never seen him, cold and grim, with thinned lips and curiously vacant eyes. He picked up a large stone.

*

“My name isFergus. I am the king of Galloway and a friend of the MacHeths. And I want you for my son’s wife.”

Perhaps, Christian thought with odd detachment, she was still dreaming.

“You’ve taken the wrong woman,” she said firmly. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t marry your son. I have a husband.”

Fergus sat down beside her and offered her his water flask. “Not for much longer.”

Christian frowned, accepting the skin flask. “What do you mean?” She lifted the flask to her lips and swallowed the fresh, reviving water.

Fergus shrugged. “Without you, the MacHeths have no need to let him live.”

She lowered the flask slowly, staring at him. “You’re saying the MacHeths will murder my husband so that I can marry your son?”

“It won’t be their motive,” Fergus allowed, “but the outcome will be the same.”

“That makes no sense! You have a huge lordship—a kingdom, if you prefer. What do you want with a tiny piece of land at the other end of Scotland?”

“Oh, the MacHeths can have the land back. Or you can keep it. I don’t care. It’s you that I want.”

Her heart quickened, seemed to tug painfully at her stomach. She pressed her palm against it, trying to calm it.

“So,” she said, “I would get to be Lady of Galloway one day. I can see that it’s a promotion. But what, in God’s name, is the prize for you?”

“You.” He peered at her, searching her eyes, her face. His breath caught. “You don’t know, do you? You genuinely don’t know.”

“I know who my father was,” she said dryly. “He was a good man and a gentleman, but hardly worthy of a marriage alliance with the lord—theking—of Galloway!”

Fergus guffawed into his beard as he reclaimed the flask.

“You do know,” she said carefully, “that I am Christian de Lanson?”

Fergus turned his sharp, black eyes upon her. “I know exactly who you are. Why do you wear the mask? Are you disfigured?”

“Yes.”

“Badly?”

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