Chapter Four
Blake waited in the shadows beside the dead horse, his knife held idly between his fingers. He wanted to wipe the blade—any warrior worth his pay always kept his blades clean and ready-–but he allowed that having the knife still bear traces of his crime would have a certain effect.
And really, a little bit of fear went an awfully long way when it came to an unexpected abduction.
Besides, while he hadn’t let the horse suffer—he wasn’t a monster; the beast had been dead before it knew what was happening, and he did feel remorse for its necessary sacrifice—it would not hurt his case if the MacAllan lass thought he was brutal enough for such a thing.
Because he was brutal. He just reserved that side of himself for human beings. Beasts didn’t merit such treatment the way people did.
It took only a little while for the lass to come out the front of the building.
Handy, that; he’d been prepared to wait for as long as it took for the girl to do whatever business brought her to an inn in the dark of night, whatever brought her within his reach and made the next step in his plan that much easier.
Och, it had been an age since he’d been this lucky.
Still, he waited with a predator’s patience as she gasped at the sight of her slain horse. She looked pretty, with that alarm in her expression. All big, round eyes and pale cheeks.
It was only when she peered wildly into the shadows, like a frightened rabbit, that he emerged from his hiding place.
“Well,” he said, teasingly, playfully, because this was his game and she was the toy. “Isn’t this a verra nice surprise?”
He watched as her eyes tracked from his height to his dripping blade and back to the carnage.
“Who are ye?” she asked. She didn’t bolt. She was cautious.
A pity that it wouldn’t be enough.
“That’s nae important,” he said, still keeping that mocking thread in his words. “What matters is this, lass: ye come with me quietly, and nae harm will come to ye. Ye dinnae do that and… Well.” He made a show of cleaning off his blade on the edge of his plaid.
“Ye dinnae need to do this,” she said, carefully inching to one side, putting the body of the beast between them. Clever. Still not enough, but it was charming in its way. “I dinnae have any coin, but I’d give it to ye, I swear.”
He shook his head. “It’s nae your coin I’m after, lass. Come along now. I’m nae a patient man.”
She inched back a little bit more. She probably thought she was actually getting away from him. How utterly precious.
“My father will come for ye if ye lay a finger upon me,” she said, though her voice was still shaking. If he had the time or the inclination, he would warn her that the key to a successful threat was not wavering. “He isnae a man ye wish to cross.”
He laughed outright. “Och, Lady Katrina—” He enjoyed her flinch as she realized he already knew who she was—“I am the man that ye dinnae wish to cross. And we both ken that your father has grown comfortable hiding behind neutrality and cowardice. He isnae a threat to me; he isnae a threat to anyone. But I grow tired of this game. It is time for ye to come with me.”
He lunged for her, far more quickly than she could hope to evade, even with the horse’s body between them. His own mount wasn’t far. He would get her out of her before she even had time to make a fuss.
But Blake hadn’t accounted for Katrina not trying to run. Instead of trying to flinch away from him, she pulled her hand from her pocket, thrusting it in his direction.
He only had enough time to notice that there wasn’t a knife in her hold before he was struck with a faceful of powder.
He coughed—a fatal instinct.
He had time for only one last thought as darkness crashed over him.
What a damned fascinating woman.
Katrina ran. She didn’t stop long enough to let herself think about her horse, or about how she was stranded hours from home, or how there was a giant of a man who knew who she was and wanted to abduct her.
Those thoughts would only slow her down, and she hadn’t had enough of the herb powder left in her pocket to allow for that. If she had judged him correctly, he would be following her soon enough.
So, she ran.
She hadn’t made it far before a figure lunged for her in the dark. Not the man who had killed her horse, but the whittler who had been waiting by the back door. She hadn’t realized they’d been together.
She lunged away with a shriek, tripping over a root in the dark and going to her hands and knees.
He was on her in an instant, and it was all that she could manage to flip herself before he was upon her.
She kicked, squirming and fighting inelegantly, scrabbling in her pocket for the very last traces of her powder.
There wasn’t enough to blow it in his face, but that didn’t matter. He was close enough that she could grind the remnants into his face directly.
The man choked, clearly not expecting the way she shoved her palm against his nose and mouth. Good. All the better to shove the valerian and poppy mixture directly into his lungs.
It was only a heartbeat later that his grip slackened as the herbs took effect.
Katrina didn’t take any time to note her aches and pains as she scrambled back to her feet. Her running was more ungainly now, but she pushed as fast as she could.
Because there hadn’t been one cloaked man in the inn.
There had been two.
She didn’t get far before she could hear it, the sound of a pursuer’s footsteps thudding on the ground behind her. She sucked in as much air as she could, frantic and terrified, feeling the stabbing in her chest with each breath.
And then she felt the man grab at her wrist.
She cried out at the pain in her shoulder as she was wrenched practically off her feet, his iron grip unbreakable.
She barely managed to keep her feet beneath her; she sensed it in her bones that falling now would mean the end.
She yanked at her arm, no matter the pain it caused. But he was too strong.
He whipped out a knife, and she tried twice as hard to pull away, but she was only rewarded with a vicious slash down her arm before he brought the knife up to kiss her throat.
She froze.
“Ah, there we are, eh, lass?” It was the same voice from the tavern, coarse and cruel even when the words weren’t harsh in and of themselves. “Now, dinnae ye think it’s time we have some fun before the captain gets here?”
The captain. That had to be the red-haired giant.
That man frightened her, but this man… He was worse, somehow.
“Stop.”
The command didn’t come from Katrina; her throat was too constricted with terror to do much except focus on the cold steel against her throat.
No, it was the man who had killed her horse. The captain.
“Drop the knife now,” the voice growled.
The hooded man obeyed, and Katrina wondered what it might feel like to have that kind of power.
She didn’t let her wonder at his ability deter her from trying to bolt once again, but her hope didn’t even have time to manifest before it died. The tall captain stepped into her path, causing her to crash into him, grabbing at her injured arm.
She hissed in pain when his fingers touched the weeping wound.
The man—and hell, why wasn’t he still unconscious in a heap?—lifted her arm, peering at it like he could not comprehend what he was seeing.
“You injured her,” he said, and his voice was so mild that Katrina couldn’t help but shiver at the sound.
“The wee bitch tried to run,” the cloaked man complained.
The captain drew his sword, and Katrina shrank away.
It was pure animal instinct; anything to put distance between herself and that deadly length of steel.
The captain yanked her close, and no level of fear could have kept her away from that pull, as inevitable as the rise and fall of the sun.
With one swift movement, he thrust out the blade—
And ran through the cloaked man in a single, merciless stroke.
A tiny squeak escaped Katrina as the man fell, a gesture of surprise on his face that would have been comical if not for the bubble of blood that came out of his open mouth with his final breath.
The captain pulled his blade free, and the corpse fell.
Dispassionately, the surviving man wiped the blood from his steel on the dead one’s cloak, then sheathed the weapon again.
“Come along now,” he said as dispassionately as if this whole misadventure had been nothing but an inconvenience. “We have wasted enough time as it is.”