Chapter Thirteen
Katrina gave another wrench to the reins urging the horses to go faster. The clouds were blotting the sky and she knew they had minutes before the rain started. She didn’t know if the canvas would hold the rain, but she did know Blake could get a cold with his injuries.
She muttered prayers to the Gods when she found a cave less than five minutes before the rain started rolling in. She wrestled Blake out of the wagon—easier than getting him in—set the horse to munching on one of the bales of hay from the backseat, then went out to find herbs, supplies, anything.
All of this meant that when the rain started falling, she was bending over in a field, peering at plants, trying to make certain that they were the right herbs.
Getting wet.
“Stupid, bloody Bloodhound,” she muttered… though she did poorly at convincing even herself that she was more angry than she was worried.
He had lost so much blood.
As soon as she had what she needed, she hurried back to the cave, trying to avoid thinking of what she would do if she arrived to find him already dead.
No, that was not something she could afford to think of.
When she returned and saw Blake shifting restlessly on the makeshift pallet she’d prepared for him, relief swamped her with so much force that it nearly knocked her over. That relief was short-lived, however, when she felt his brow and found him burning with fever.
“Och, Blake,” she murmured as she hurried to make a tisane out of the herbs and the small fire that she’d managed to build after grumbling and cursing and struggling.
She had just warmed the water enough to use when his hand found her ankle, his grip feeble and clumsy and so unlike him.
“Maisie?” he mumbled. “Maisie, is that ye?”
Katrina swallowed hard against the sudden wave of jealousy she felt at hearing him call another woman’s name. That was foolish, bordering on the absurd. It was probably just because of the long day and night.
“Nay,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s Katrina—Katrina MacAllan. Come now, ye have to drink this. It will help.”
“Katrina,” he mumbled, turning his head toward her, letting her guide the waterskin to his lips. He drank, wincing at the sharp taste. “Nay…”
“I ken it’s bitter,” she soothed. “But it will help ye.” She coaxed a few more sips into him, then smoothed his hair off his sweaty brow and set to mending his shoulder. She thought he had fallen asleep again—or dropped back into unconsciousness—when he started speaking.
“Katrina,” he said again. “I thought ye were Maisie.” She busied her hands with his wound. “My sister.”
His sister.
The tight band wrapped around her chest loosened.
“She was so sweet,” he mumbled. His good arm swung across the ground until he made contact with her body, as though he just needed to be touching her more than he had been. “She had the loveliest eyes. Green.” He paused, his face contorting in a frown. “Blue. Very blue. They were…”
“Dinnae fash,” she soothed when his breathing picked up in a clear sign of distress. “Ye are fine.”
“Why can I nae…” he mumbled. “She was-she was—”
“I ken,” she said, though she didn’t, not really. But she couldn’t have him tossing and turning like this, not without making his injury worse.
“I miss them,” he said, his voice fading as the soothing herbs in the tisane he had consumed took effect. “But… at least ye are here…”
He finally drifted off, then, and this time it lasted through her final ministrations to his shoulder. His hand stayed curled around her calf as he slept.
She didn’t remove it.
Katrina fell into her own uneasy doze sometime in the hours just before dawn, only to jolt awake when Blake sat up with a gasp just as the sun filtered through the opening of the cave. His movements were so sudden that even the placid old horse was startled.
“Where are we?” he demanded, his head whipping from side to side. “Where’s Lennox?”
Katrina shoved to her feet. “Would ye stop that?” she told him furiously. “Stop moving like that? Ye are going to rip out your stitches. Would-now-Blake!”
He froze, his eyes narrowing when she shouted his name.
“Stop moving,” she hissed at him. “I spent half the night stitching up your sorry hide, and I am nae going to do it again if ye rip your wound open once more. So sit still.”
He did not sit still, the stubborn sod. He stood up instead, ignoring her words completely.
“Where is Lennox? He cannae have gotten far!” Then, his eyes narrowed as memories seemed to come back to him. “Katrina,” he said slowly, “did ye stab me?”
She had been feeling a bit bad about that, actually, but now that he was being so difficult…
“Aye, and I will stab ye again if ye dinnae sit down!”
She lunged, getting in front of him as he tried to step toward the mouth of the cave. She propped her hands on her hips and raised her chin stubbornly.
“Move aside, lass,” he commanded.
“Nay,” she said, just as forcefully. “If ye do that, ye will bleed to death. Your wound isnae clotting properly, not even when I give ye herbs to help ye along. Look at ye, ye are already trembling.”
He was. The exertion of standing had left him shaking, and each step forward looked more uneasy than the last.
It didn’t stop him, however, from reaching up and grabbing her chin, just as he’d done the night before. The difference was clear, however. He couldn’t hold her nearly as firmly, and his grip felt shaky against her skin.
“Why should ye care?” He snarled the words, but it was the snarl of a wounded animal lashing out against the hand that offered help, not that of a predator confident of its place in the food chain.
“I abducted ye. I chased ye down. I’m your enemy.
Why should ye care if I die right here in this cave? ”
“Ye arenae going to die,” she snapped back. “I am nae going to let that happen.”
This seemed to only make him angrier.
“And why not?” he shouted. “I am a brute and a monster. I threatened ye, hunted ye like prey. Prey doesnae care for the predator, Katrina. Ye should have learned that lesson long before now.”
Katrina was unmoved. She’d been shouted at by dozens of patients before. Strangely enough, Blake’s caustic ire put her in a comfortable place, one where she knew her role. It felt good. Refreshing, after the days of confusion and uncertainty.
“Because,” she said in her no-nonsense healer voice, “I am a healer. I wouldnae let anyone wander off and bleed to death when I could prevent it—not even ye. Not even someone worse than ye.”
She had meant it as a jab, something to lighten the mood, to try to put him at ease. It was a tactic she’d used before, and it often worked. But something almost… regretful passed Blake’s expression.
And then his knees buckled beneath him.
She caught him before he hit the ground, and he had enough strength remaining to sink carefully to a seat on the ground.
Her hands probed gently at the wound on his shoulder as she watched his face for signs of discomfort. This, too, was something she’d done hundreds, thousands of times before.
She’d never feel her throat catch when a patient turned to look at her before, though.
He saw too much. He saw far, far too much.
She focused on the wound.
“I dinnae like that ye are still bleeding,” she mumbled.
“That’s what happens when ye stab someone,” he said with exaggerated mildness. She rolled her eyes and reminded herself that it would be wrong of her to prod his wound a little harder just because he was being difficult.
“Mayhap more sleep will help ye,” she said instead, digging in her pocket. There was a little bit of the powder that Arran had given her remaining. “Some poppy will help ye rest, even if it hurts—”
Her words cut off when Blake grabbed her wrist, stopping her movement.
“Have ye nae figured it out by now?” he asked, smirking—though there was a clear hint of pain beneath the mockery. “Draughts and potions and poisons… they dinnae work on me.”
“Aye,” she said, distracted as she did mental calculations. “Ye are bigger than most men, to be sure, but—”
“Nay,” he interrupted. “I mean that they dinnae work.”
Her hands stilled, and she looked at him, confused.
“What do ye mean?”
He shrugged one shoulder—his good side, thankfully—but she was starting to be able to see through these feigned expressions of unconcern.
“My laird needed a weapon,” he said. “Weapons dinnae succumb to poison. So, I learned how to take just enough that I wouldnae be sick—then more and more. Some Roman king discovered how to do it. If ye take just a little poison every day, ye build up a tolerance. Then, when your enemies use it against ye, ye dinnae fall.”
He stopped speaking, and Katrina realized that she was looking at him in open-mouthed horror.
“Stop that,” he said instantly. “Dinnae look at me like that.”
“Blake,” she managed finally. “That’s… it’s horrible. I cannae believe that Laird MacFarlane made ye do that. Even if ye werenae killed, ye must have been so sick. For ages.”
When his face twisted into a furious snarl, Katrina knew that she’d been right.
“Blake—”
“Save your pity for someone with a heart, aye?” he snapped. “I dinnae need ye staring at me with those eyes. I’ve done enough in my life that’s worse than that, trust me, lass.”
Katrina had to wait a few breaths before she could trust her voice.
It was just so wretched. She thought about the man from the night before, the fever-stricken one who had looked so lost when he couldn’t recall his sister’s eyes.
That had been the man—scarcely more than a boy, then—that Laird MacFarlane had dosed with poison for his own personal gain. Over and over again.
“I just cannae fathom it,” she said when she knew that her voice would come out steady. She tucked the edges of the bandage over his shoulder a little more tightly. “If Laird MacFarlane would poison his own blood to turn him into a weapon… would he balk at completely erasing an entire clan?”
Blake’s head whipped around to look at her, his eyes wide.
But he didn’t say anything to defend his laird. He didn’t say one single word.