Chapter 19
It was a full quarter of an hour before they slowed enough to speak, and Arran spent all of it in a blind panic over Kenna’s well-being. Every time he looked at her, he seemed to find a new smudge of blood that marred her body, and there were bruises on nearly every part of her exposed skin.
When they reached the forest, they slowed, if only because the horses’ flanks were slick with sweat, and there was no telling how far they would have to ride that day.
“What in the almighty hell has happened?” Arran asked in a burst. “Kenna, whose blood is that? Why did ye nae come last night as we planned?”
Kenna wiped a hand across her own sweat-slick brow, leaving a new smudge of blood in her wake.
“It’s… it’s Ashbourne’s,” she said, her voice ragged. “I-I killed him.”
She had the kind of shocked, distant look in her eye that Arran recognized from soldiers after their first battle. She would need time to process what had happened, and he knew that would come with its own set of worries, but for now, he was naught but relieved.
“Good,” he said softly, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm. She squeezed his fingers, not seeming to notice when this smeared blood on him, too. He didn’t mind. “He deserved death and then some.”
“He… locked me in a closet,” she said in that same absent tone. “That’s why I couldnae come for ye. I’m sorry.”
“Nay, dinnae fash,” Arran said, swearing to himself that he would admit to the doubt he had faced during those long hours in the dungeon. She’d been facing her own horrors, and he had betrayed her, albeit only in his mind. “Ye are safe now. That’s all that matters.”
She nodded, then lapsed into silence.
“I’m worried about your uncle,” Arran said to Declan, giving Kenna a moment to gather herself. Lord knew they would need them for whatever came next. “His forces outweigh MacBrae’s, at least while they’re at Callahan Keep, but what he did today to help us… It willnae be without consequence.”
But Declan shook his head. “My uncle is cannier than most,” he said. “Besides, there is little MacBrae can do without revealing his own villainy. My uncle will ken as much. He will come out of this ahead, dinnae ye fret.”
Arran’s worries were not entirely curtailed, but he tried to push them back. He needed to trust Declan, this loyal friend who had thrown away everything to help him.
“Aye,” Arran said. “Verra well.”
The only warning they got, as they continued on the absurdly peaceful path, was a moment of silence; animals gone quiet when they shouldn’t have, not for only three riders.
Arran’s spine went stiff.
And the arrows began to fall.
Kenna screamed, the sound bright and piercing. Arran wheeled Torrin toward her, grateful for his mount’s swift reactions, then grabbed Kenna out of her saddle and slung her into the undergrowth as he and Declan whirled to face the attackers.
There were too many all mounted. They loosed another volley of arrows. Arran ducked, but he heard Declan’s bellow of pain as a bolt landed in the thick muscle of his thigh. By some mercy, he remained atop his horse.
He and Declan, swords in hand, cut down the archers before they could reload, leaving only the soldiers armed with blades to contend with. That meant they could only attack within arm’s reach.
“Kenna!” Arran cried over his shoulder. “Mount and go. Go!”
He heard rather than saw her. The hoofbeats of her horse sped away, carrying her to safety. He heaved a sigh of relief. At least she was safe.
He and Declan squared up to face the remaining soldiers. Arran looked over at his friend, the truest friend he’d ever had. When Declan looked back, he smiled.
“Ye had best go get your lass, mate,” he said, his grin as crooked as ever, despite his injury, despite the approaching enemy. “She will need ye. And your clan will need ye.”
It was as close an admission as Arran had ever heard that Declan knew.
“Nay,” he said. “I cannae leave ye. Ye need me too,” with that he swiped his sword to an oncoming warrior, cutting him down with a single swipe.
“Aye,” Declan said. They had only moments now. “Ye can. Ye must. Go now. We will meet again in another life, brathair.” He drew in a shaky breath, and Arran felt a prickle behind his eyes. “And tell Adaira that I— Ah. Ye ken.”
Before Arran could reply, his friend, his brother, let out a war cry and plunged toward the soldiers, his sword high above his head.
Arran was horrified, but he did not dare waste his friend’s sacrifice. He wheeled Torrin and raced after Kenna. The stinging in his eyes was from the wind as he bent low over Torrin’s neck, he told himself. Nothing else.
He couldn’t stop looking back as he caught up to Kenna, though, in the very last moments before a bend in the path took the battle out of sight.
There were none left standing behind them.
Declan Callahan had saved his friend.
And it had been the very last thing that he’d ever done.
Arran could not fall apart, so he clenched his fists around the reins and mentally recited every prayer he knew to honor his fallen friend.
Declan deserved every honor, as he had used his life to buy Kenna and Arran’s freedom.
Kenna noticed very little throughout the rest of the day, too consumed with… everything that had happened. She wondered if her mind had simply decided that it would not take in anything else, as a method of protecting her from further distress.
The hours passed without her awareness. She kept seeing the same images, over and over: Ashbourne’s body at her feet, Arran with a noose around his neck, Declan Callahan’s fallen body.
All this horror, and for what? Her father’s greed?
Eventually, though, the horses could go no further. Arran guided them to stop beside a stream and she realized, with faint shock, that the sun was going down. She startled when her mount stopped moving beneath her.
“It’s time to stop, lass,” he said quietly. “Ye havenae slept or eaten. The horses need rest.” He nodded to the stream. “And I thought ye might wish to wash.”
She looked down at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. Ashbourne’s blood was still there. It was itchy, she realized.
“Aye,” she said. “Aye, I would.”
He helped her down from the horse, who went to drink greedily from the stream. Still feeling as though this had to be some kind of dream, Kenna went over to the stream—
When she saw her own blood-spattered face, her own wide eyes and white cheeks, something inside her snapped.
A sudden surge of furious energy consumed her and she plunged her hands into the icy water, splashing her face and scrubbing frantically.
When the water didn’t feel like enough, she grabbed handfuls of rough sand and used them to scrape at her skin until the water ran clear, until there was no trace of her husband’s blood left on her hands.
She couldn’t see any further streaks on her face, though the reflection was distorted, but her gown was still a vision of horror.
She kicked off the gown, not minding the chill, then plunged the fabric into the river until it was as clean as it would ever be.
It wasn’t enough.
She threw the sodden wad of silk onto the banks, then shivered in her chemise as she scrubbed her hands again and again, until they started to go red again, this time from the cold and abrasive sand rather than from blood, though the small cuts on her fists from banging at the door cracked and began to weep anew.
“Kenna. Kenna, please. Lass, stop. Ye have to stop.”
Arran was at her side, tugging at her hands, pulling her away from the stream, worry creasing his face. She took one look at him and found that there was still something inside her that could break. She collapsed into his arms, sobs wracking her body.
“I need to get clean,” she wept into his shirt front, soaking him with the same cold water that covered her practically head to toe. “I killed him. His blood… I killed him. It’s all over me.”
“I ken, lass,” he crooned, coasting a hand down her tangled hair. “Ye had to, but… I ken. Ye are all right. I’m here with ye.”
“And Declan,” she cried. She pushed her head up so she could look at him. “Declan, your friend. Och, Arran. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
His face creased with grief, and he held onto her even more firmly.
“Me, too, Kenna,” he murmured.
Together, they sank to the ground, arms wrapped around one another.
Dimly, she realized that he’d started a fire and snared a rabbit, which now roasted over a makeshift spit.
She felt even more useless at the sight.
He’d gotten them food and warmth while she’d panicked like a stupid, frightened child.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
Arran pulled back to look at her. “There’s naught for ye to apologize for,” he said fiercely. “I am the one who is sorry for dragging ye into a war that has been raging for, hell, a decade at least.”
She shook her head.
“Nay,” she said. “I have been in it from the start.”
She explained what she’d seen in the letters, particularly about how her marriage to Ashbourne had been arranged even before the explosion.
“I feel as though a veil has been lifted,” she admitted, her gaze fixed on the fire.
“I finally understand what my father has always been. He is a murderer, a man who would do anything that would serve his own ambition.” She looked up at Arran.
“I saw it. The proof that he conspired to kill your family. Ashbourne burned it, but I… I saw it. And I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”
“It’s nae your fault,” he said, almost angrily—though she knew he wasn’t angry with her. “All of this… It was given to us by our parents, but it wasnae any fault of our own.”
He set his jaw and suddenly, it seemed impossible to Kenna that she hadn’t known him for who he was from the first moment she’d seen him.
Who could ever mistake him for anything except a laird?
“We will see it ended, though,” he said, and the words sounded as much like a prophecy as a vow. “We will find out all who had a hand in these misdeeds, and we will see justice done together.”
He looked down at her, those amber Lennox eyes as bright as ever in the gleam of the firelight.
“That is, if ye wish to have me,” he said softly.
They had been through misery and fear and violence and blood. They were battered and undersupplied and completely alone in the world, aside from each other.
But Kenna knew then that it would be all right.
“I would go anywhere with ye, Arran Lennox,” she said, and there had never been an easier promise in her life.
“There is nowhere I cannae reach with ye at my side, Makenna MacBrae,” he said back, a soft smile gracing his features.
She pulled him in for a kiss that tasted like home.