Chapter Fifteen #3
Forcing her eyes open, Evie pushed Morganna away.
“No. I have to see Drummond. I want to see him for myself.” She tried to push herself up to her hands and knees, then lost her balance and fell back.
“Help me get to him. I have to see him!” Her voice sounded hollow, as if she were talking inside a barrel. “Help me, Morganna!”
“Hold fast, Evie. I beg ye.”
“I have to see him!” If she couldn’t balance on her hands and knees, then by golly, she would belly-crawl to wherever he was. She rolled to her stomach, struggled to lift her head, and fought to focus. The last she saw of him, Drummond had been just inside the door.
Then she saw him. Flat of his back. His head slightly turned toward her. Eyes opened in a sightless stare and entirely too pale—as if every drop of his blood had been drained from his body.
“No.” The word caught in her throat. He couldn’t be dead.
He just couldn’t. Without realizing how, she was suddenly next to him.
Morganna must have sifted her, or whatever she’d said she was going to do to move her.
She dragged herself closer still, hugged an arm around him, and rested her head on his chest.
“I can’t hear his heartbeat.” Tears overflowing, she struggled to yank his doublet open and out of the way. She pressed her cheek closer, determined to feel it. Then there it was. The faintest steady thump against her face. He lived. Barely. But he was alive.
“You have to live,” she whispered, hugging him tighter. And it wasn’t because she was afraid of the century, it was because she couldn’t imagine living her life without him. “You have to live.”
A hand on her shoulder made her stiffen. “Let me sift ye into yer bed, lass,” Morganna said. “Ye have to live too. For his sake.”
“Sift us both. I want to be with him.”
“Aye, my brave friend. It will be done.”
*
“No more.” Evie pushed away the cup and rolled back over to rest her head on Drummond’s chest. She had to feel his heartbeat.
That steady tapping against her cheek was the only thing that enabled her to breathe.
She finally realized it now—she loved him more than life itself, even though she’d never told him.
There wasn’t a doubt or a fear in the world that could make her think otherwise.
Hugging him tighter, she willed him to feel her love.
One of the reasons she’d never said I love you was because that was just the way she’d been raised.
That realization had finally hit her when she was arguing with that cruel Fae.
Grandmama and Granddaddy had never vocalized their love for each other or her, but there had never been a doubt in her mind that she was well and truly cherished.
She might not have heard the word itself, but she’d felt loved and treasured each and every day as long as they’d lived.
She bit her lip and closed her eyes tighter shut. That was a weak excuse. She should’ve told Drummond she loved him so he would’ve known her doubts and worries—her cowardice—were something they could overcome.
“Mr. Jadrack said ye need to drink all of that special water he fetched for ye, m’lady.” Ada hovered around the bed like a bee trying to decide where to land. “He said ye’ll not heal fully unless’n ye do.”
“Then we need to get some of it down Drummond. He needs it more than I do.”
“We’ve wet his lips with the waters, m’lady. Canna do much else, lest they catch in his throat and choke him.” Defeat echoed in Ada’s voice, proof enough that Evie’s hearing was already improving.
“Is Mor—Mistress Martha back yet?” She’d almost called her Morganna before catching herself, and she kept having to stop herself from calling Jadrack’s healing waters what they really were—dragon tears. The less Ada knew, the better.
“No, m’lady.” Ada set the cup aside, straightened the covers across Evie and Drummond both, then stepped back as if determined to remain standing beside the bed for however long it took for Evie to decide she needed something.
“But remember, she only just left with Mr. Jarrah and Mr. Farbis. All the way to yer Craig Durness and all the way back could take several days. Especially if the weather happens to turn.”
It only took the blink of an eye for an Unseelie to travel across time.
But Evie didn’t say that part aloud. Morganna had returned to Craig Durness to see if anything else could be done to pull Drummond out of whatever that Fae bastard had done to him.
Jarrah and Farbis had traveled with her for protection, even though it had been eerily peaceful since the attack in the solar.
“Will ye not at least try to drink what’s left in the cup, m’lady? Mr. Jadrack gets so disappointed when ye leave any behind.”
“Ada.” Evie forced herself to pause and pull in a deep breath, hold it for a minute, then let it out before she snapped at the poor girl who was only trying to help. “Please go away and let me rest.”
The maid eyed her with such a pitiful look that she resembled a lost puppy. “Ye not be needing anything from me, m’lady? There’s nothing I can be doing?”
“Go see if Murdoch’s managed to get the Heberdys packed up yet.
I want them gone.” That would be some uplifting gossip she could whisper in Drummond’s ear.
“And tell him to send Glengarten with them. I want him gone, too.” She refused to leave any possible threat to Drummond unaddressed.
“Tell him the countess, the chief’s lady, orders it done by nightfall. ”
Ada immediately brightened. “The Heberdys be packing as we speak, m’lady.
Word has it their solicitor told them naught could be done about the betrothal contract, what with the old chief dead and buried now, and removed from the chiefship even before then because his mind had left him.
And about old Glengarten…” She crossed herself.
“One of the lads saw a body caught in the rock spires at the base of the cliff. ’Twas Glengarten.
They were waiting for the waters to calm to get to him, but when the surf quelled, his body was gone. Pulled out by the tide, I reckon.”
“Good,” Evie said without a qualm of guilt about being so heartless.
Nothing mattered but Drummond’s safety. Settling her head more comfortably into the dip of his shoulder, she took his hand and laced her fingers through his.
All she needed to concentrate on now was getting this man better.
“Thank you, Ada. You’ve done well. I need a nap now.
I’ll call you if I need anything. All right? ”
With her usual reluctance, the maid bowed. “Aye, m’lady. I’ll be in the solar with my mending. Sing out if’n ye need me.”
Evie closed her eyes and didn’t open them again, even after she heard the door latch click.
“She’s going to drive me nuts, you know that?
” she said quietly. It made her feel better to talk to Drummond, and somewhere, deep down, she just knew he heard her.
She laughed just as softly. “Of course, I’m already kind of nuts after the whirlwind of the last few weeks.
Time travel. Marriage. Riding a unicorn.
Befriending a dragon, a wulver, a gnome, and a pair of rogue fairies.
” She clutched his hand tighter and pressed a kiss to his fingers.
“Fated mates. The stuff of myths and legends.” She hugged his hand to her chest and snuggled closer.
“I bet Granddaddy and Grandmama were fated mates. And my parents. From what I can remember, they always clicked. They loved each other just like we do.”
She swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the aching knot of emotions that warned she was about to burst into tears.
“I’m sorry I wasted so much of our time together worrying and having doubts.
” She blinked hard and fast, then gave up and let them flow.
“I’m sorry, Drummond. Please come back to me. Please?”
Nothing answered but his quiet, steady heartbeat, but she’d take it. At least he lived.