Chapter 10
Marin would not fail again. Bran had ducked to avoid the hurtling dagger.
She took advantage of his new position and launched a solid kick into his chest, pushing him backward.
His sword clattered to the ground, too far for him to quickly grab.
He coughed out an exhale and widened his stance in preparation for a fight.
A swift glance at the floor did not reveal the dagger or sword within her reach. Damn.
She threw a fist at him, but he batted it aside with his forearm. The strike of his solid arm jarred her. She swung again, and again he deflected. Each blocked hit resulted in a jab of pain shooting through Marin's hand.
Her gauntlets were in her chambers with the rest of her armor. Though she regretted their absence now, slipping quietly into Bran’s room had been more important than protection. At least it had been before she realized she’d be engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a man twice her size.
Bran grabbed her wrists in his large hands and restrained her with impossible strength.
She wrestled against him, twisting and turning, her legs kicking at him seemingly without effect.
No matter what she did, he did not lighten his grip.
She arched back in preparation to smash his forehead with her own.
“Nay, lass. No' this time.” He knocked her feet out from under her.
She fell back, unable to stop herself, and landed atop something downy. The bed.
Bran's weight fell on top of her and set her heart beating wildly.
“Stop attacking me.” His gaze searched hers. “Stop trying to kill me. I dinna want it to be this way.”
“What way did you want it to be?” She didn’t bother to stifle her incredulity. “Did you expect us to allow you to come into the castle and welcome you?”
His brow furrowed. “Mabrick Castle,” he muttered.
Marin stiffened. The soldiers and her sisters were on their way there now. Why would he mention it?
“What of it?” she demanded.
Had he known? Damn her for taunting him. And still, even if he left now, he would not be able to catch up with her sisters. Nay, they would be within the walls of the stronghold by then, safe.
“Ye dinna send them to Mabrick Castle, did ye?” There was a hesitation to his tone that made her skin prickle with a wave of apprehension.
“Why?” she whispered.
“The castle was taken by the Grahams two days past.”
Her veins ran cold with horror. The Grahams. The fiercest and most brutal of all the reivers to strike the borders. They attacked without discretion, killed without mercy—men, women, children. And what they did to the women…
It had been a Graham who had attacked her mother a decade before. He’d raped her in the attack and left her for dead, leaving before he could be struck down. Aye, the Grahams were the cruelest, and Marin had sent her sisters and the remaining brave soldiers directly in their path.
Marin shook her head. “Nay.” Tears blurred her vision. “Nay, you lie.”
The earnestness on his face, the gravity in those dark eyes spoke for him. He was not lying.
“My sisters…” her throat choked off the remaining words, unable to even form the thought.
“May already be dead,” he finished for her.
“Nay.” Marin thrashed against him. “Let me be. Let me go to them. Let me—”
“Marin.” He spoke gently in her ear, his voice soothing.
She jerked and stared up at him. “You. You can help. You and your men. You must save them, Bran.” Her words came fast and frantic, for she was mad with hope.
He smirked. “I have what I came for, as well as the eldest daughter of the Earl of Werrick. The Grahams have no qualms with me as yet, nor I with them.”
She shook her head. All she could see in her mind was her sisters marching out with the meager army of soldiers, the brave group moving steadily over the rugged terrain of the borderlands toward what they thought was safety. Only it wouldn’t be safety—it would be a slaughter.
Desperation rose with her panicked heartbeat. She blinked away her tears and gazed imploringly at him. “Please, Bran. Please.”
His jaw tightened. “They made their choice. It’s all a rich man’s game. No doubt that’s why the Grahams attacked Mabrick. Men like me, we’re simply pawns.”
“I’ll do anything.” Marin lay back in supplication and pushed up her breasts toward him. “Take me, do what you will with me, just please, please save my sisters.”
She couldn’t stop the hot tears from leaking from the corners of her eyes. The force of agony radiating from her chest was more than she could bear. How could she be so helpless? How could there be nothing she could do?
She could not lose her sisters. They could not die.
“I will be cooperative in any way you require. I will ensure the servants accept you.” She clenched her fists. “I will do anything.”
He smirked. “Attacking the Grahams would cause a war I will spend a lifetime fighting. I canna risk my men. I canna risk losing this castle. No’ when I’ve worked so hard to secure it.
” He shook his head. “Yer sisters left my protection. They made their own decisions. I canna be responsible for their fates.”
But her sisters hadn’t made their own decision. Marin had made it for them. She had sent them to be cut down like beasts on the hunt.
An idea struck her so suddenly, it wrought a cry from her lips. “I will marry you.”
Shock lit his gaze.
She gazed up at him. “Please. If you help my sisters, I will marry you.”
Bran eased his grip from Marin, but she did not launch at him in an attack. Her eyes were red rimmed from her tears, her cheeks and nose pink.
“Marrying me will give you an earl’s eldest daughter for a wife,” she explained.
“You will have the acquiescence of the entire castle. You will have the security of my wealth. And if you were so generous as to save the earl’s four other daughters from being massacred, I assure you my father would bestow upon you a great reward in gratitude.
You will no longer be a pawn in a game of rich men. You will be a player.”
Bran studied the lovely, miserable woman beneath him. She was clever. Clever and shrewd and made as weak by her love for her sisters as he was by his love for Ena.
Her suggestion was an ideal opportunity, and an appealing one at that.
Marriage to Marin would give him the protection of a March Warden, a lifetime of safety for Ena as long as she didn’t do anything foolish.
He stared down at Marin, taking in her beauty.
He would be lying if he said he had no interest in her carnally.
God’s teeth, he wanted her with every bit of his being.
And it was true her people would accept him if she voluntarily wed him.
It might complicate matters when Kerr arrived, but then Bran would not be in such a position of weakness.
“If I release ye, will ye stop fighting me?” he asked.
Marin nodded with her watery blue gaze fixed piteously on him. He knew the helpless desperation she felt, as well as the chest-splitting pain of loss.
Bran released Marin and straightened. Every moment he considered her proposal was one that could cost one of her sisters their lives. And yet it was not a decision made easily.
“Ye’re no’ wed?” he asked. After all, it could be a trick.
She sat up. “Nay, I am not wed. I never have been.”
Yet she claimed to not be a virgin. An interesting situation.
“Betrothed then?” he pressed. He wouldn’t want some foolhardy intended coming after him over this.
She shook her head.
“And yet ye are no’ a maiden.” He frowned. “Were ye compromised when ye were held captive before?”
Her cheeks went red. “I am a maiden.” Marin folded her arms stiffly over her chest. “I only said I wasn’t in an attempt to seduce you and kill you.” She paused before saying with vehemence, “I’ll do anything to save my sisters.”
He scoffed. “Including seducing me and marrying me, aye?”
She lowered her eyes. “The advantage of a marriage to me would be beneficial to you.”
All the strength she possessed before now wilted beneath the crippling effects of her helplessness.
She pressed her hands over her heart and her shoulders curled forward, as if the pain were too great to bear.
For truly, it no doubt was. She lifted her eyes to him, and another tear rolled down her cheek. “Please save my sisters.”
He could not bring himself to let anyone hurt as he had, especially not a woman.
“Aye,” he said at long last. “I’ll help ye in exchange for marriage to ye.”
Marin leapt to her feet. “Thank you.” She clutched his hand. “We must make haste.” She paused and looked around the room for a frantic moment. “I must get my armor.”
Her armor? Surely, she did not expect to fight with men on the battlefield. “Ye willna be joining us.”
“I’m trained in battle. All of us have been. I can fight.”
“Ach, aye, I know ye can fight.” He grinned at her. “But ye willna be joining us in battle.”
Her mouth fell open. “I have to come.”
“Ye are to be my wife, Marin.” He touched a hand to her shoulder. “As yer husband, I will protect ye no matter what. Whether with my life, or by demand that ye stay put.”
“You will not keep me here while I might be the extra soldier to tip the scales in battle.” She stood stubbornly in front of him. “This needs to be included in our negotiations.”
Bran grunted with disapproval, but now was not the time to argue with his intended. Not when every moment wasted could mean death.
“I’ll accompany ye to get yer armor, but we must make haste.” Bran led her from the room. “The forces were already assembling to come after ye. They should be ready to depart.”
As quickly as was possible, she donned her armor and they were mounted on their steeds outside in the pouring rain. Marin’s full mouth was set in a grim line under her helm.
Bran called out for his men to move. And move they did, pouring from the gates of the castle in a wave, riding as though the devil himself were chasing them.
“We will catch them,” Bran shouted to her. “I dinna see their horses missing from the stables. They are on foot. Even with over an hour advantage, we will be able to gain on them. Especially with our hobblers.”
She looked at his horse, then down at her own.
“They dinna look like much.” He patted his steed’s strong neck. “But they can navigate this terrain like a selkie does the sea.”
“We must arrive in time.” Marin’s emphatic words were not meant for him.
“Aye,” he said with all the conviction he could muster. “We will.”
And he hoped to God he was right.