Chapter 12
To his burning shame, Ciaran could not ride alone for the mad dash back to the Keep.
With his injured arm, he couldn’t even mount Shadowbane’s back properly; he had to let Eilidh help him in a bitter reversal of the way he’d tried to help her back in the Buchanan stables.
The searing pain that went through him when she helped heft him onto Shadow’s back was so brutal that his vision went briefly black around the edges.
Eilidh held both reins in her hand as she sat behind him, keeping Grian at Shadow’s side and Ciaran in the saddle each time he swayed, the lost blood on top of his lingering injuries leaving him dizzy and lightheaded.
He was so lost to agony that he couldn’t even properly enjoy having her sweet, soft form pressed firmly against him as they rode, which was one of the damnedest shames of his life.
But everything good and true in the world was hidden from him by the screaming from his shoulder every time Shadowbane jolted, the lightest impact driving a breathy, miserable rasp from his lungs.
The only thing Ciaran could manage was staying upright. If he fainted and toppled, Eilidh would be unable to get him back atop the horse—and he knew that the stubborn minx was too hardheaded to leave him behind, even though she should.
By the time they reached the gate to Buchanan Keep, he was nearly insensible. He responded only to Eilidh’s extortions as she half-dragged, half-guided him back to the—oh, for Christ’s sake—the same bloody sickroom where he’d been previously sequestered for way too long.
“I hate it here,” he grumbled, his head swimming.
“Aye, I ken,” Eilidh soothed. She was being so lovely and tender and sweet, and as much as Ciaran enjoyed it, he missed her mischief, too. “Lay down, though, and I’ll fetch ye a healer.”
Och, he didn’t like that, no more than he liked the way her long, pale braid was streaked with his blood.
He reached up a hand as though he could wipe away the crimson.
It was as soft as he’d imagined, that hair.
He grew distracted by the silken feel of it between his fingers until Eilidh tugged it free from his grip.
“Dinnae go,” he complained when he recalled that she intended to leave him. “It’s naught but a scratch. There’s no need to alert the others; it will just bring more trouble than it’s worth. Bide, Eilidh, bide. Just lie with me a while.”
It was very much not a scratch, and if it had been, he never would have been so lost as to demand that she lie beside him. But half-delirious from blood loss and pain, he found that he didn’t much mind the idea of dying, as long as he could do so with Eilidh in his arms.
She yanked her hand from under his.
“I will not let ye bleed to death just for the sake of your pride,” she snapped at him, and he felt himself smile. Ah, there she was, his fierce wee lassie.
“Ye foolish, gallus mon,” she grumbled at him, and he tried to explain that it wasn’t pride that made him want to keep his injury a secret, but fear—fear that he would be discovered, that he would lose her, that he would lose everything.
But the darkness edged further in before he could find the words, and when he blinked again, Eilidh had been joined by Vaila and the cantankerous old healer, who was muttering ominously about idiotic warriors mistreating their bodies.
“What the hell is going on?” the warrioress Donaghey demanded, taking in the bloody scene in the room, her hands propped on her hips. She was wearing a dressing gown, and her dark hair was loose about her shoulders; she clearly had just come from her bed.
Eilidh was seated at Ciaran’s bedside, just as she had been the first time he’d woken in this Keep. This time, however, her slim fingers were wrapped tightly around his good wrist, as though she could keep him amongst the living with the force of her touch.
“Ciaran and I went for a ride,” she explained, her voice breaking and a tear dripping down her cheek.
It left a clear track in the muck and mud on her beautiful face.
“And there were mercenaries. They tried to take me.” Her voice was hard as steel, but she had to pause to gather herself before she could finish. “To Gordon.”
Even beneath the sluggishness brought about by his injury, Ciaran felt a flash of fury over the filthy things those mercenaries had threatened Eilidh with. He wished he had killed them more slowly. They deserved pain.
Vaila crossed to her sister and wrapped Eilidh in her arms, heedless that the younger Donaghey lass was streaked in gore.
“Never,” she muttered fiercely, pressing a firm kiss to her sister’s temple. “No man will ever take ye—not so long as I draw breath.”
When Vaila turned to look down at Ciaran, there was a softness in her expression that he’d never before seen. The warrioress lost her sharp edges where her sister was concerned.
“Thank ye,” she said with feeling. “Ye saved my sister from a horrible fate. We are greatly in your debt.”
He nodded, the gesture taking more than the usual effort, not only because of his physical weakness but because he knew it was all so impossible.
If he didn’t deliver Eilidh to Gordon, his clan would suffer, and he could not bear that.
But he could not bear betraying her, either.
And he could see no other route to take that would spare him from one of these two intolerable fates.
“He needs rest,” Eilidh insisted, tugging her sister away. “Ye should have seen him—he fought off ten men like it was nothing.”
Admiration and pride shone in her voice, and it made Ciaran feel lower than a rat.
“And he will live to tell the tale,” the healer interjected with that warmth he only showed toward Eilidh. “The wound will be painful for weeks, but it will mend.”
There was naked relief on Eilidh’s face, but Ciaran was of two minds. If he’d died, at least he would have left this world doing something honorable. And Gordon couldn’t blackmail a corpse.
“Good,” Eilidh said, a smile lighting up her face. “Good. I’ll stay with him while he—“
“No.” The objection, low and firm, came from Vaila. She gave Eilidh a quelling look. “No. Ye heard the master healer, Eilidh. He will recover. And ye need to rest, too. There’s no sense wearing yourself to the bone when he will just be sleeping. Use your sense.”
Eilidh visibly hesitated, so Ciaran forced himself to smile, though he suspected that it looked more like a grimace.
“Go,” he urged her. “I’ll be fine.”
He had survived the tender ministrations of the master healer before, and though the man wasn’t nearly as soft of hand or pleasing to look upon as Eilidh, Ciaran supposed he would survive it all again.
Eilidh frowned, but she nodded and let her sister lead her away, Vaila luring her out with promises of a hot bath before she returned to her bed.
Ciaran tried not to be affected by the way Eilidh cast him one last look before she was tugged out of sight, as though she could not bear to leave him without confirming once more that he was alive.
He tried even harder not to think of the way she’d kissed him. He would have enough time to torture himself over that memory when she had learned of his perfidy.
“All right, then,” the master healer said, sounding rather too enthused for Ciaran’s comfort. “Let’s see if we can’t save your life after all.”
He pressed bitter herbs into Ciaran’s hand, which he choked down, only barely managing to avoid retching at their taste.
When the healer put a cup of poppy milk to Ciaran’s lips, he considered refusing—he could not afford to have his mind addled with Gordon’s threats looming ever closer—but the pain that would come when the healer cleaned the wound on his arm made the temptation of oblivion too great.
Ciaran drank and then gritted his teeth as the healer began cutting away the sleeve of his shirt, managing to hold in any cries of agony until pain—and the drug—dragged him under.
His sleep was not restful—it almost never was these days.
Even though unconsciousness and the haze of the poppy, flames flickered over his skin in his dreams, the agony of the body joined by torment of the mind.
Screams echoed, one moment, he was in the stone corridors of Gunn Keep, only to turn the corner and find himself at Culloden, then back in Buchanan territory.
He was consumed with panic that he had to find…
To help….
To save….
But his fear was overwhelming, and answers were not forthcoming. Every time he thought he had the solution, he would instead find a corpse. No sooner did he think that he must protect his father than he saw the same man dead before him. His brothers were next, then old comrades.
His terror mounted, and eventually it was Kirsty he saw dead, Gordon standing, laughing over her body.
“The Gunn name is finally ash,” he gloated, his mouth dripping with dark fangs. “And it’s all because of ye.”
Ciaran had a sword in his dream-hand. He lunged forward, intending to run Gordon through, but when his blade met flesh, it wasn’t Gordon on the other end, gasping his last. It was Eilidh, looking up at him with betrayal in her eyes as they went dark for the last time…
“Hush, hush.” A voice broke through the endless violence of his dreams, and cool fingers brushed against his brow. “Ciaran, rest. Ye will injure yourself anew this way. Ye must stop this thrashing.”
He couldn’t quite open his eyes, but it didn’t matter. He knew that voice. He knew that touch.
Eilidh. Oh, thank Christ and all the saints, she was still there, still with him, he hadn’t been the hand that dealt her destruction—at least not yet.
“Ye are safe,” she reassured him, her voice the most melodic sound he’d ever heard. “I willnae leave ye. Sleep, Ciaran. Sleep.”
The fog of terror lifted. He felt her fingers intertwine with his, and he squeezed back lightly, even though the small action took all his strength.
The darkness rose up to claim him again, but this time it was a comforting friend, not an enemy that bit and snarled. In the last moments before he succumbed to it, Ciaran clenched her hand in his ever tighter.
He needed that touch, needed it as though it was the only thing left that anchored him to the world.