Chapter 17
Braden on his heels, Jamie headed for the village, but slowed when he heard Braden struggling for breath.
“Where is she, lad?” He stopped once they exited the keep’s gate and turned to Braden, who bent over and gasped for air.
“Take yer time. Breathe,” Jamie told him as he placed a hand on Braden’s bare nape.
His lungs and throat were slightly constricted, from fear and exertion, not from his affliction.
Jamie gently eased them open, gratified when he heard Braden’s breathing even out.
“I’m alright,” Braden told him. “She’s with Mhairi.”
“Take yer time getting there,” Jamie told him. “I’ll go ahead and see how she is.”
“’Tis bad,” Braden said. “I’m sorry to slow ye down. Sorry I didna find ye sooner.”
Jamie clapped him on the back, then ran for Mhairi’s cottage, grateful that most of the villagers were in the foggy fields or within their homes.
He didn’t bother to knock. He flung open the door and rushed in. “Where’s Aftyn,” he demanded, blinking rapidly, peering into the relative darkness of the interior. Finally, he saw Mhairi, who bent over a still form on the wee couch Jamie had assumed her son used.
“Here, healer. She needs ye.”
He glanced around. “Braden is coming. Please go meet him and tell him to wait outside. Ye, too, if ye will. I’ll call for ye if I need anything.”
Mhairi hesitated. “I should stay to help ye.”
Jamie needed her outside. “Braden was having trouble breathing,” he said, hoping he lied, and that Braden still breathed easily after he helped him. “Could ye check on him, please?”
That got her moving. Alone with Aftyn, he dropped to his knees beside her.
Blood and dirt covered her. Her hair tangled around her head and over the tear streaks through the dirt on her cheeks.
Curled up in a ball of agony, she looked as if she'd been dragged by a horse or survived a pitched battle.
Perhaps she had. Dismay filled him even before he touched her.
He bent closer, his chest tight with fear for her, and murmured, “Dear God, Aftyn, what happened to ye, lass?”
“Agatha’s husband, and Mhairi’s,” she answered, rocking a little. “At the stable."
She surprised him. Even though her voice was weak and strained, relief that she was awake let his chest expand. He took a breath.
“They said healers… useless. I screamed. Cried. No one to help me.”
Her whimper broke his heart.
“So they hit me.” A tear leaked from one very swollen eye. “Knocked me down. Kicked me.” She took another ragged breath. “Dragged me by my hair. Did it again… and again.” She shuddered. “I fought. Nay good.”
Fury filled Jamie, deeper and redder than any fury his temper had endowed him with in his life.
Two men beating a lass? “I’ll get them for this.
There’s nowhere they can hide.” He ran a hand gently along Aftyn’s curled form, touching skin through her torn clothes.
He winced as he assessed what the men had done to her.
What he found shocked him. How was she still alive? “Did they…”
“Nay. Enough… to beat me… I guess. Carried me past… gate… guards in… blanket and dumped me behind Mhairi’s… where ye left Rory. Message… ye're next.”
Jamie shook his head. “The two o’ them canna take me. They'd best bring more men.”
Aftyn frowned at his boast. “She… must have heard. Got me inside… when men left. Sent Alastair… for ye.”
“Braden found me. I havena seen her lad.”
“I hope… men dinna have him.”
“Once I see to ye, I’ll find out.”
“Everything hurts.”
Jamie took a breath to steel himself. Aftyn needed the best he could give her, but he didn't know if he could do what she needed without killing himself in the process.
There was no one here to pull him from her if she slipped away.
He clenched a fist. This was Aftyn. He would not let her slip away.
Even putting her into a healing sleep seemed too great a risk. If ever he was going to trust her, now was the time. “I have a confession to make,” he started, but stopped when she groaned.
“I, too. My fault da locked… yer men… dungeon.”
A chill ran up his spine. What did she mean, her fault? He didn’t know what to process first—her fault or her father. “Ye can tell me later. I must make ye better.”
“Ye canna. ’Tis too much…”
“Nay, lass. I owe it to ye to show ye how I heal.”
Jamie pulled aside her torn dress and placed his hands on her belly where the men’s boots had done the most damage. Agony assailed him. She bled inside. It took some time, but Aftyn finally uncurled a little and took a breath.
Jamie fought to control his own reaction to the pain and pressure he’d taken from her. It now encircled his torso like a vise, crushing him. He lifted his hands from her and straightened, then wrapped his arms around his middle. A groan slipped out.
Aftyn went still and for a moment Jamie feared she’d passed out, but then her eyes opened and her gaze fastened on his. “I was right.”
“I dinna ken what ye thought,” he ground out, “but… let me show ye.” He took a breath to steady himself.
The pain was ebbing. But he wasn’t done.
He touched her neck, his senses reaching into her, clearing the bruising from her muscles and her kidneys, soothing her pain, and taking it into himself.
His body went cold and he started shaking.
How had she stood the agony? He willed himself to concentrate, cursing under his breath.
“Ach, what have ye done? Did ye take… into yerself? Ye mustna!”
She pushed his hand away, breaking the contact before he was ready. Fire flashed along his veins and spread throughout his body. He couldn’t breathe.
For a moment, he thought this must be what it feels like to be struck by lightning.
A groan escaped him, and his chest expanded.
He breathed through the pain and took her hand, noting the skinned knuckles, but leaving them for later.
He moved to the swelling around her left eye next.
He didn’t want her to lose her sight. With his other hand, he lightly skimmed the area around her eye, nodding as the swelling went down, feeling the pressure and pain inhabit him.
At least they hadn’t managed to break the bones around the eye, or her jaw, but she was bruised and swollen there, too.
He stroked the side of her face to soothe her, but also to repair the damage the men had wrought. Aftyn whimpered and drew back, but he still held her hand and didn’t let her pull away from him. They’d hurt his woman. They’d suffer the same, and more.
“Dinna fear me, Aftyn. Dinna fear what I can do. I am helping ye.”
“Dinna fear ye. Fear for ye. Why must ye suffer?”
Jamie managed a chuckle around the tightness that still coiled around his middle, his back and belly burning, his lungs on fire. “That is a question… I’ve never gotten an answer to. ’Tis the way this works.”
“'Tis unfair,” Aftyn said, and laid her free hand on the side of his face.
She breathed more easily. If he squinted, he could tell her color had improved.
“I’m so sorry," she told him. “And thankful ye are willing to bear this for me.”
“I would bear… anything for ye, Aftyn. Anything… to make ye better. To save ye. Ye must ken that.”
She shook her head. “I didna. But I do now. Who else would take my pain into himself, save ye?”
Jamie forced a smile, then looked away. “I dinna think there’s another who can, lass.”
“Then I’m lucky ye are here.” She pushed herself to sitting, wincing as she braced herself on one arm.
“Yer shoulder?”
“Aye, but it can wait.”
“I’d be grateful for that,” he said, attempting a jest but meaning it. He needed to rest. To let the pain subside. “Do ye ken where Mhairi keeps her mead? Or ale? Or even water? We could both do with something.”
“There’s a pitcher on the table. I dinna ken what’s in it.”
Jamie pushed to his feet and stumbled to the table, hugging his middle as he moved.
When he reached it, he placed both hands on it and rested there, breathing hard.
Once he could, he poured a cup and sniffed.
“Perfect. ’Tis cider.” He swallowed it down, then poured another and took it to Aftyn, along with the pitcher.
He watched her drink, then joined her on the pallet and poured another.
“Drink. Then I will. Then ye’ll have another until we are ready to continue. ”
“What if Mhairi comes back in?”
“Ye will say ye lost yer breath from the beating, but ye are better now. Sore. Move carefully, as though ye are still in pain.”
“I am still in pain.”
“I ken it, lass. But ye willna die…”
“Die!”
“Ye were bleeding. Inside. They wouldha killed ye, Aftyn, had Braden no’ found me when he did. ’Tis why it hurt so much.”
“And now ye are bleeding inside!”
“Nay. I was never in danger.” The lie came easily. Aftyn needed to hear it. If she stayed with him, she would learn the truth eventually.
He leaned his head against the wall behind them. “I shoulda killed Rory for what he did to Mhairi. Then he wouldna have been able to hurt ye, too.”
“Nay, Jamie. Ye wouldha been outlawed.”
“’Twould have been worth it to save ye this pain.”
Aftyn could not believe what Jamie had revealed to her. He put his life in her hands, not knowing she’d already betrayed him and his men. He’d saved her life. And took her pain into himself.
She wanted to curl back into a ball and cry until the shock and shame of it left her. If they ever did.
She’d been at least partly right when she thought Jamie felt pain when people jostled him in the market.
And when he turned to follow the old woman with his gaze, she now knew he’d wanted to help her, but dared not.
Not only would he harm himself, her sudden improvement would cause questions to be asked that Jamie dared not answer. Braden! “Was Braden’s elbow broken?”
“Aye.”
“And ye fixed it.”
“Aye. And his breathing. He’s not as hale as he wants to appear to be. But I helped him. He’ll get stronger.”