Chapter 28 #2
The realization should have unsettled him. It should have panicked the soldier who had spent twenty years prioritizing the mission over the individual. Instead, it felt horribly, devastatingly simple. His chest ached from the sheer, expanding force of it.
The smoke thickened abruptly into a wall of gray as he rounded the lower bend of the canyon. Then, through the haze, he saw her.
Relief struck his chest so violently it nearly unseated him, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Margaret's dark mare reared near the narrowest, most dangerous part of the pass, its eyes rolling white with wild terror as the creeping smoke and flying sparks surrounded them.
The frantic animal pulled hard on the leather reins, even dragging its hooves sideways toward the steep cliff edge, while Margaret desperately tried to control the beast amid the blinding chaos.
Her heavy wool cloak whipped violently in the howling gale. Her copper-gold curls had come loose completely from their pins, blowing across her face in a wild halo. And even through the rising wall of smoke, Fergus could see the raw panic beginning to crack her proud composure.
"Margaret!"
His voice tore raw and desperate through the roaring, heated air.
Her head snapped toward the sound. For one fleeting, terrible second, a flash of pure relief opened across her soot-stained face.
Then the mare screamed.
The high-pitched, terrifying sound cut through the roar of the fire like a honed blade. A massive, burning pine branch crashed down from the ridge above, collapsing directly onto the path nearby in a shower of brilliant orange sparks. The mare bolted in a panic, jerking violently sideways.
Margaret lost her grip on the wet leather reins.
Fergus watched it unfold in horrifying, agonizing slow motion. Her balance shifting in the saddle. The horse twisting beneath her. The thick gray smoke swallowing the path.
Then, she disappeared over the lip of the ridge.
"No!"
Fergus launched himself from his saddle before his stallion had even fully skidded to a halt on the gravel.
The intense heat hit his bare chest instantly, singeing the hair on his arms. The fire had moved much closer than he had realized from the ridge. Bitter smoke filled his lungs, choking him as he stumbled and scrambled down the steep, rocky incline where Margaret had fallen into the darkness.
He found her half-sprawled against the sharp stones several feet below the main path, her body crumpled in the bracken.
Margaret tried to push herself upright the moment he reached her side, her fingers clawing at the dirt, but she failed immediately. The smoke down in the hollow was too thick, suffocating. Her face had gone deathly pale beneath the black soot streaking her skin.
"Fergus." The word dissolved instantly into a fit of violent coughing.
Fergus dropped to his knees beside her on the rocks, his iron composure shattering. "Easy. I have ye."
His hands shook uncontrollably as he caught her shoulders, pulling her up. The sight of her gasping, struggling for a single breath of clean air, ripped straight through his ribs, tearing his heart open.
Margaret blinked up at him through the thick smoke haze, her hazel eyes watery and bloodshot. "Ye came."
Christ. The fragile, heartbreaking disbelief in her voice nearly destroyed the last of his control.
Did she truly still not know what she was to him? Did she still believe he could let her go?
A massive burning branch crashed somewhere near the top of the ridge, sending a wave of heat over them.
Above, her mare bolted into the dark, its hooves clattering away.
Fergus barely even looked at it. Let the beast run.
Let the whole world burn to ash. Nothing mattered except getting his woman out of the jaws of this canyon alive.
He pulled Margaret upright, lifting her against his chest. The heat in the hollow had become unbearable now, the flames roaring through the dry gorse above them while the heavy smoke settled thicker along the stone cliff walls. The pass had become a furnace.
Margaret swayed weakly against him, her head rolling back. Fergus caught her fully, his arms wrapping around her like iron bands.
"Stay with me, Margaret," he commanded, his voice coming out harsh and raw with panic.
It was urgent enough that her eyes fluttered and immediately lifted toward his through the haze. Smoke curled in a thick curtain between their faces. Margaret coughed again, her small frame shuddering violently against his.
Fergus tore off his loose linen overshirt without a second thought, the fabric ripping roughly beneath his calloused hands.
He shoved a large portion of the cloth into a shallow rain basin gathered in the hollow of the rocks nearby, soaking the fabric quickly in the cool water before pressing it gently but firmly over Margaret's mouth and nose.
"Breathe through this," he ordered, his eyes locked on hers.
Her small, cold fingers weakly gripped his wrist, holding the cloth in place.
The tiny touch hit him hard, resonating straight to his gut.
Even now. Even here, in the middle of a burning hell.
He soaked the remaining piece of fabric and quickly tied it around his face to protect his lungs.
Then, he gathered her against his bare chest fully, sliding one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her shoulders.
Margaret made a soft, startled sound as he lifted her weight into the air. It wasn't because she was heavy; she felt impossibly light to him, but because her body fit too naturally there against his skin.
Her arms instinctively curled around his neck, her fingers twisting into the dark hair at the nape of his neck as he began the brutal carry back up toward the path through the thickening smoke.
Fergus could feel every ragged, shallow breath she struggled to draw into her lungs. He could sense her trembling against him, her small body trembling with exhaustion and fear. Raw terror gnawed fiercely in his gut—the unbearable, suffocating fear of losing her.
Flames shot higher along the rocky ridge beside them, turning the night a fierce, blood-red orange.
The heat seared against his bare back and shoulders, enough to blister his skin, but he hardly noticed the burn.
Margaret pressed her face weakly into the crook of his shoulder, trying to hide from the glare.
"Fergus," she whispered hoarsely against his neck.
He tightened his hold on her immediately, his muscles straining as he climbed. "I've got ye, Margaret. I've got ye."
The words came from the very depths of his soul. It wasn't a laird speaking to his wife. It wasn't a declaration of duty. It was a blood promise.