Chapter 18 #2
About his brothers—Connor, stern and honorable, carrying the weight of the clan on his shoulders. Cameron, the warrior, all fire and sword. Elspeth, the one with the sight, who’d run away for love and paid a terrible price.
“Do you think she’s alive?” I asked. “Elspeth?”
“I hope so. But I dinna ken. Last I heard, Connor had banished her. She was with child, alone, probably starving. The Highlands are no place for a woman without clan or protection.” Pain threaded through his voice.
“I should have done more. Should have found her, helped her, protected her. But I was too busy running from my own mistakes.”
“You were seventeen. You couldn’t have known.”
“I knew enough. I knew she needed help, and I did nothing.” He was quiet for a moment. “That’s part of why I have to go back. Have to make it right if I can.”
I understood that. The need to face the past, to fix what you’d broken, to atone for the things you’d done wrong. It was the same need that had driven me to touch that stone in the first place—the need to stop hiding, to start living, to choose something real even if it was dangerous.
“We’ll find her,” I said. “When we get to Scotland. We’ll find out what happened to her. And if she’s alive, we’ll help her. Together.”
“Ye’d do that? For my sister? For a woman ye’ve never met?”
“I’d do anything for you.” The truth of it settled in my chest, warm and certain. “I love you, Brodie MacLeod, completely. No going back.”
He kissed me then—not soft, not careful, but deep and hungry and real. Kissed me like I was the air he needed to breathe, like three hundred years and an ocean and a twisted ankle and the widow’s men hunting us didn’t matter because we were here, we were together, and we were alive.
When we broke apart, both breathing hard, he pressed his forehead against mine.
“I love ye, Maddie Carter. I love ye more than I love Edinburgh, more than I love freedom, more than I ever loved Anne McKinnon. Ye’re the first thing that’s felt real since the day they dragged me onto that slave ship. The first thing worth fighting for.”
“Then fight,” I whispered. “Fight to get us to those mountains. Fight to get us to Scotland. Fight for our future. Because I’m not letting go of you. Not for the widow, not for time, not for anything.”
“Neither am I, lass. Neither am I.”
We held each other while the jungle sang its night songs outside. Eventually, we lay down together on those mildewed blankets, his arms around me, my head on his chest, and let ourselves rest.
For the first time since touching that stone, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Morning came too soon. We ate the dried fish and hard bread, drank more of that earth-tasting water, and set out again as the sun burned through the canopy. My ankle held—barely—wrapped tight enough that I could almost forget the pain.
The terrain leveled out as we climbed higher. The air grew cooler, easier to breathe. And sometime around midday, through a break in the trees, I saw them.
Mountains. Real mountains, not the jungle-covered hills we’d been climbing. Blue-gray peaks rising into clouds, impossibly distant but also somehow within reach.
“There,” Brodie said, pointing. “See that notch between the two tallest peaks? That’s where the settlement is. Thomas said we’d know it when we saw it.”
“How much further?”
“Another day. Maybe less if we push hard.” He glanced back the way we’d come. “The widow’s men are still behind us. I can feel it.”
“How can you tell?”
“The jungle’s too quiet. Birds should be singing, insects buzzing. But it’s silent. Like something scared them off.” His hand tightened on mine. “We need to move. Fast.”
We did. Pushed harder than we had since leaving Ruth and Jonah’s. My ankle protested every step, but I ignored it. Pain was temporary. Freedom was close.
By late afternoon, we were within sight of the mountains. I could make out the notch Brodie had pointed to, could see what looked like a path winding up the slope.
“Almost there,” I said, breathless but hopeful. “We’re almost—”
Brodie stopped so suddenly I nearly crashed into him.
“What—”
“Dust,” he said quietly, staring back down the trail we’d just climbed. “On the lower slope. See it?”
I looked. And there, maybe half a mile behind us, a plume of dust rose through the trees.
“They’re coming,” Brodie said. “And they’re coming fast.”
We ran.
My ankle gave out completely after the first hundred yards. I went down hard, catching myself on my hands, pain shooting up my leg sharp enough to make me cry out.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped as Brodie hauled me upright. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”
“Yes, ye can.” He pulled my arm over his shoulders, taking most of my weight. “We’re not stopping. Not now. Not when we’re this close.”
We kept moving. Slower now, but still moving. The mountains loomed ahead. The settlement was up there somewhere, hidden in those peaks. Safety. Freedom.
We just had to reach it.
The first arrow hit a tree trunk three feet to my left.
I didn’t even register what it was at first—just heard the sharp thunk of impact, saw the shaft quivering in the wood.
Then Brodie was pulling me sideways, off the trail, into the undergrowth.
“Down!” he hissed. “Get down!”
We dropped behind a fallen log as more arrows whistled through the air above us. Voices shouted in the distance—commands in English, the baying of dogs.
The widow’s men had finally caught up to us.