Chapter Eleven
Katrina counted Blake’s steady breaths as the shadows from the window crept across the floor.
After they had eaten, and he’d consumed the drugging herbs she’d snuck to him, she’d feigned exhaustion and taken to the bed.
Blake had made himself a pallet on the floor, and Katrina told herself that this was less a gesture of chivalry and more an effort to stop her from escaping.
It wouldn’t work, though. Not with the herbs in his system. He would have a deep, dreamless sleep.
And when he woke, she would be gone.
Really, she ought to feel triumphant about that. It was so, so foolish to feel guilty, but that was the unmistakable emotion roiling in her gut.
She could not listen to that, though. So, when she was confident that he was truly asleep, his inhales and exhales peaceful and even, she slipped from the bed and crept to his side.
The moon was at its peak, the light shining through the room enough to illuminate the hilt of Blake’s dagger. Katrina kept her movements steady as she pulled the weapon from the sheath.
No matter what nice things Blake might have said about her intellect, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t use a physical weapon, as well. If she had learned anything these past few days, it was that she could never have too many defenses.
She cast one last look over Blake’s sleeping form as she slipped from the room.
It wasn’t regret that she was feeling.
It couldn’t be.
She pushed any such feeling far, far aside as she slipped through the inn, which had gone quiet except for the last few stragglers who sat in the common room, quietly gossipping. None of them paid Katrina any mind as she headed out into the cool night.
Moving quickly, she headed toward the same spot among the trees where she had met Kenna and Arran before.
She didn’t realize until she saw them that she had been holding onto the fear that they wouldn’t be there, that something would have happened during the past few hours.
But when Kenna’s arms went around her neck with a happy squeak, Katrina felt such a strong sense of relief that it made her knees go weak.
“Ye made it,” Kenna sighed into Katrina’s ear. “I was so worried.”
“Good work, lass,” Arran said with significantly more restraint as he patted Katrina once on the shoulder.
Katrina did not know her friend’s husband particularly well.
They hadn’t interacted a lot even as children, but she suspected that this was as much affection as he showed to people who weren’t his beloved Makenna.
And she couldn’t truly blame him, when he had lost all he had held dear in a single night.
“Thank ye,” she said to Arran, then squeezed Kenna back tightly. “And it was fine. It all went precisely according to plan.”
A new spasm of guilt went through her at the words, but she ignored it just like she had ignored all the others.
“Right,” Arran said briskly. “We dinnae have time to waste. Let us move as quickly as we can.”
The three emerged from the trees and began hurting through the sleeping village. They were so intent on their purpose that none of them, not even attentive Arran, noticed the shadow watching silently from above.
They stayed quiet, skulking in every shadow and corner they could find.
Now all three of them were fugitives wanted all over.
Katrina prayed no one saw them until they reach the end of the village.
When Arran signaled for them to stop and wait, Katrina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
They stayed in the darkness, waiting.
Soon, a battered farm carriage pulled up near the old barn at the edge of the village where Arran, Katrina, and Kenna huddled.
For a moment, Katrina froze with worry. She did not think that this old wagon and its contents were a true threat, but it would be far better if they were not witnessed at all as they made their escape, but Arran immediately stepped from the shadows to greet the driver, a silent, cloaked man who did nothing but nod as Arran handed the two women aboard, hiding them beneath the heavy canvas cover.
In his farmer’s garb, Arran would look just right in the driver’s seat. And the bundles of hay in the back made a cozy little hole for Kenna and Katrina to hide inside, even if the dusty atmosphere did make Katrina’s nose itch a bit.
The carriage rattled as they moved through the countryside, but the women braced their legs against the bales of hay and sat facing one another. Kenna reached across the small space to clasp Katrina’s hand in hers.
“I cannae tell ye how sorry I am for getting ye into this mess,” she said fretfully, her worried expression growing even more stricken when she saw the bandage on Katrina’s arm. “And ye were hurt, too?”
“‘Tis nothing,” Katrina assured her. “A scratch, and it’s healing now, anyway. Bla-the Bloodhound gave me a poultice. I suppose he didnae want my arm to rot off before he had a chance to return me to Laird MacFarlane.”
If Kenna noticed Katrina’s near-slip about Blake’s name, she didn’t let on.
“Still,” Kenna said, gnawing at her lower lip. “MacFarlane only went after ye because of us. Because we came to ye for help. I’ve been feeling so awful about it, Katrina. I cannae believe I was so selfish.”
“Stop that this instant,” Katrina said sternly.
“Ye werenae selfish, ye and your husband are trying to right a wrong that has gone on for too long. I was wrong to ignore ye. And…” She sucked in a breath.
“And I couldnae escape the MacFarlanes anyway. My father has arranged a marriage for me. With Brodie MacFarlane.”
Kenna sucked in a tiny gasp of surprise, but they didn’t have time to discuss it. The carriage stopped just long enough for Arran to join them in their little den in the back of the wagon.
“I ken it’s a tight fit,” he said apologetically. “But it’s better, as we pass the next village, that we arenae seen at all, even disguised. Best to take extra care.”
It was, indeed, a close fit, but given that Kenna and Arran seemed to prefer being nestled close to one another, Katrina wasn’t nearly as cramped as she might have been.
“I trust that Kenna told ye how sorry we are to drag ye into this,” Arran said from where his arm was around his wife’s shoulders.
“She has,” Katrina said with a fond sort of patience.
“And, as I told her, I dinnae regret any of it. I dinnae regret helping her all those years if it meant keeping her safe from that-that brute.” She spat the word, which was far too kind for Kenna’s late husband.
“I am only sorry that I didnae give ye help as soon as ye came to me asking for it.”
Arran gave her a level, thoughtful look, and in that patient gaze, Katrina could see the legendary Lennox leadership. He would be a good laird, when he succeeded in taking back his birthright.
She knew the road to get there would be hard, but she knew, deep down, that he would manage it.
“I dinnae blame ye,” he said eventually. “But I do mean to warn ye. MacAllan willnae be able to hide behind neutrality any longer. This thing that is coming… I fear it will involve all of us.”
Maybe he expected her to argue, but she didn’t. Instead, she nodded.
“I ken that,” she said. “I suspect my father kens it, too.”
If he hadn’t known it when he’d made the marriage contract that all but sold her to Brodie MacFarlane, he must have realized it when his daughter had been abducted.
“I was just telling Kenna,” she said, “but my father promised me to Brodie MacFarlane. I should have told ye before I left with ye,” she added hastily, apology in her words. “Because I ken that it will bring ye trouble in heaps.”
“Ye are worth the trouble,” Kenna insisted as Arran nodded his agreement.
“MacFarlane willnae take kindly to it,” he added grimly.
Katrina felt anxiety gnaw in her stomach—for her father, for her brother, for her clan. For herself and her friends.
And, strangely enough, even for Blake, who would no doubt face consequences for losing her.
But she had to do the right thing. And this… This was the right thing.
They rumbled along for ages, the night passing outside their little cave.
Katrina’s exhaustion began to gnaw at her enough that even the uncomfortable seat in the back of the wagon wasn’t enough to keep her from drifting off.
It wasn’t the best sleep she’d ever gotten—whenever they went over a bump in the pitted road, she would jolt awake—but she saw that Kenna, too, was getting her share of restless slumber.
Arran, however, was always awake and alert.
This meant that, when the carriage abruptly stopped in the middle of nowhere, Arran was the first to react. By the time Katrina finished blinking the sleep out of her eyes, Arran was already moving his hand slowly toward his own belt, where his blade was waiting and ready.
Kenna was still, frozen. Arran met Katrina’s eyes and shook his head minutely, cautioning her against speaking.
Any hint of weariness left her in a flash of panic as Katrina reached for her own pilfered knife.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.