Chapter 7 #2
As the oat and milk mixture boiled, she took the bag back and, with a small stone, crushed the hazelnuts into rough smaller parts. She stopped every so often to stir the porridge, then returned to crushing with all the aggravation the last few days had grown within her.
Keir watched her with a frown on his face, but he made no move to stop her.
She sprinkled a little pinch of their precious gathered sea salt into the mixture then removed it from the flame a little, just enough to let it simmer as she stirred.
After a few more minutes, she removed the pot from the heat entirely, but just as Keir moved to taste it, she slammed the lid down on top.
"Nay. Let it rest. It makes it taste better," she told him. "Do ye have any honey?"
He grunted in answer. She sighed and made her way into the small pantry building where she'd found the milk, and after a bit of searching found a tiny jar of stored honey from the forest hives.
She smiled, imagining Theon delicately extracting the nectar without harming the bees, then shook her head.
No doubt they'd stolen this, or else smashed the nest on the ground and looted the remains.
When she returned to the pot, Keir hadn't lifted the lid. He was watching it as though waiting for it to do something. Briana ignored him and arranged five bowls on a flat rock then opened the pot lid and spooned a measure into two of them.
"I'll serve the others when they wake up," she explained, though he hadn't asked.
She wondered where Theon had slept last night.
When she had woken up, he'd not been in the cabin—there had been only Keir, waiting outside with his arms folded despite the coldness from last night's rain.
Brushing off the thought, she dolloped a small amount of honey into each of the two bowls and sprinkled her crushed hazelnuts on top before mixing them through.
Pleased with the end result, she offered one of the bowls to Keir.
He raised an eyebrow and didn't move for what felt like an eternity.
At last, though, he took it, raising the spoon to his mouth with a suspicious slowness.
But Briana saw, with some satisfaction, the moment his eyes widened at the taste.
She took a bite of her own and smiled. It wasn't the best she had ever made, but it tasted pleasant enough.
"Well?" she prompted.
He glanced her way, mouth full of porridge now. Swallowing, he said, "Clever fingers ye have there." The grudging compliment was nonetheless genuine, and Briana was surprisingly pleased by it. Until, that was, he added with disgust, "A shame they belong tae a Cameron."
Briana's smile faltered as the reality of her situation once again reared its ugly head.
She was not cooking for friends or allies.
She had just taught a survival skill to a man who longed to see her dead.
She opened her mouth to say something, but they were interrupted as the trees rustled and three figures entered the camp.
"Christ," Keir muttered.
Briana cried out in shock, her hands flying to her mouth.
Theon and Graeme were both covered in blood, with spray on their clothes and faces.
Noah, though less affected, was still splashed with red, and his legs were stained dark as though he had been kneeling in a puddle of it.
She looked from them to Keir, but though he seemed grim, he did not look remotely surprised.
A dark suspicion filled her and fear tightened in her stomach. She remembered the look in Theon's eyes when he'd rejected Neil MacFarlane's pleas for mercy and the way the man had looked as he had died. Blood. Pain. Death.
"Is it done?" Keir asked quietly, putting his bowl down.
Theon nodded, looking tired. "I'm goin' tae wash," he said to nobody in particular, then shoved past them, not meeting Briana's eye.
Graeme followed him without a word. Noah stared in that same direction, too, but Briana held out a hand.
"Noah. Wait."
He sighed and stopped. When he looked at her, she saw no shame in those kind eyes, just a deep exhaustion and sadness she felt tearing through her own soul. "Me lady, dinnae. Dinnae ask questions ye dinnae want the answers to."
Her hands trembled, but she folded them together, and, in as steady a voice as she could, demanded, "Where did ye go?"
Noah glanced at Keir, who shrugged. Closing his eyes, Noah let out a breath. "Fine. Nae point in lyin', then. Yer father sent messengers to MacFarlane. We stopped them. None of us are hurt. The task is done."
Briana stared at him, a chill washing over her whole body. "Ye… stopped them. That's their blood?"
He opened his eyes and met her gaze, not flinching. "Aye."
"Cameron men. Men ye used tae ken. Men ye used tae be." Briana's voice grew louder as she spoke. "Ye called them yer brothers!"
"These are me brothers," Noah replied with the air of a man trying very hard not to snap. "Theon, Graeme, and Keir. Those soldiers are knowin', willin' pawns tae evil, and I have never been one of them!"
Briana thought of her brother's favored men. Unlike those most loyal to her father, they had never been particularly cruel to her. None had ever helped her, but their willingness to simply ignore her had been a kindness in its own right.
"Do ye deny the truth of yer birth, then?
" she hissed, suddenly furious as she stared at the bloodstains of her clansmen.
Her people—the only people she had, even if they had not cared for her in return.
"Do ye deny yer clan? Has the traitors' poison run so deep that ye'd slaughter yer own kin?
" She narrowed her eyes. "Will I be next? "
Noah took a moment to answer. When he did, his tone was carefully composed, but there was a dark bitterness in it that went against everything she knew of him.
"Think again, me lady," he said. "It is the Camerons who are poisonous. It is yer father who destroys everythin' he touches. The Blades have been me antidote. I only pray ye get yers before ye find yer head on a spike."
She bristled. "Was that a threat?" she snapped.
He scowled. "Ye want a threat? I—"
"Enough!" Theon's voice cut across them.
Briana whirled to see him standing at the door of his cabin, a large sheet of linen wrapped around his waist to serve as a towel.
She averted her eyes immediately, not wanting to see the way the dawn sun reflected on his bare, muscular chest nor the way his strong arms flexed as they moved.
His face was still covered in flecks of blood as though he had stopped midway through washing.
"I'll hear nae more of this. Noah, go and clean yerself up. Briana, silence."
Her anger flared and she looked back at him, her rage overcoming her embarrassment and that now-familiar twinge of unwanted desire. "Ye dinnae give me orders."
Theon smirked, but there was no humor in it. His storm-gray eyes were dark and deadly.
"Oh, but I do," he said. "I dinnae ken when ye're gonnae understand it, but when it comes tae ye, I give all the orders. If ye want yer life, ye'll cooperate. That includes nae pickin' fights with me friends whenever yer delicate sensibilities are called intae question. Understood?"
She narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth.
Unbidden, the image of him holding her pressed against him in the forest swam into her mind, but this time he stood as unclothed as he was now.
It somehow only made him more dangerous, like a wild wolf free from its trappings at last. He could kill her in a moment, clothed or not, weapon or none.
"Did… did ye kill them all?" she asked, barely containing her mix of anger and fear and desperation. "Did ye let anyone live?"
"All of them are dead," Theon confirmed. He kept his eyes on her, unblinking. "I killed two meself. There were six in total. They didnae even have time tae beg."
Horror overwhelmed her, and when she glanced back at Noah, it swelled into a dark rage she didn't know how to control. She clenched her fists tight and turned her back on all of them, her fury sharp enough to choke.
"What did ye expect?" Theon called after her as she stormed away. "’Tis as ye say, ye're in a den of vile traitors."
She walked away without a word. It was true—they were all ruthless, terrible men. Not just Keir with his hatred of her family, but funny, cheerful Graeme, and kind, gentle Noah who had once been like a brother. Even Theon, who had once been the hope in her dreams.
All traitors. All villains. And she'd never let herself forget it again.