Chapter 16 #2
not their grips on their weapons. “Last we saw, she was sailing
safely away on the Trade Wind.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Roark said.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you.”
“Laird Owen wanted someone at your trial to
speak for the MacLeods,” Niels said. “So here we are.” He held his
empty hands up to Roger’s men, palms up, as did Grant, though they
both had short swords sheathed at their waist belts and long swords
on their saddles. “We’re not here to interfere with you taking
Roark back to your laird. In fact, our laird’s expressly forbidden
it.” He lifted his chin toward his and Grant’s bulging saddlebags.
“We’ve brought extra food supplies. Figured yours were growing thin
by now.”
Scott sheathed his long sword and stepped up
to Niels. “I’m Scott,” he said, offering Niels his hand.
“Welcome.”
***
Alina was perched in the crow’s nest of the
Trade Wind, scanning the open sea with Roark’s spyglass and
seeing nothing but the late morning sun’s light reflecting off the
water. Lowering the glass, she stared out over the vast expanse
without really seeing, her gaze as vacant as the hole in her chest.
She missed Roark so much her heart actually ached. She’d heard of
people and animals dying of a broken heart, but had never really
believed it possible. Now she knew it was.
She’d almost called out for the captain to
stop the ship and let her off at least ten times before they’d
sailed out of the firth and into the open sea. To find a port town
and beg, buy, or steal a horse and go after Roark. To try to get
him free of Roger’s men. Yet she’d ended up clamping her mouth shut
every time.
Going after him, trying to free him, would’ve
gone against his given word. She wouldn’t do that to him. Worse, if
she did try and got caught and hauled back to Roger, then
everything they’d done, everyone they’d asked favors of, would have
been for nothing. So, she’d said nothing.
She’d paced the ship’s deck like a madwoman
for the first day, and climbed up to the crow’s nest the second,
and that’s where she’d been every day since, searching the sea and
missing Roark.
If she closed her eyes, she could see his
shining like rain in moonlight, pouring heat and desire into her.
She could see his slow, easy, melting grin, could feel his strong
hands roaming over her skin, his hot, throbbing cock filling her
body and soul.
She could hear his deep, resonant voice
telling her he loved her. Only her. His lady owl. Then she would
squeeze her eyes tight to keep her tears from spilling. Tears that
wouldn’t do her or Roark any good. If the Trade Wind made it
to Sea Ridge in good time, she could sail back to the North Shore
with her father and defend Roark against Roger. If the winds didn’t
hold and they didn’t make it back in time…
Alina shook her head and looked steadfastly
east, refusing to even consider what could happen. She couldn’t
bear to think of a world without Roark in it, even if it wasn’t
with her.
She laid a hand over her barren womb, the
grief she still felt at the loss of a babe she’d never had nearly
doubling her over. She knew if, by some miracle, Roger let Roark
live, he would likely be forced to marry Gwyneth. It would be
Gwyneth who bore his children. Yet as much as that possibility tore
at her, at least he would still be alive. That was what
mattered.
She glanced down at the captain and crew
going about their duties. They’d all been nothing but polite and
accommodating to her the four days they’d been at sea, and had
turned a corner of the hold into her own private little antechamber
with a hammock she’d gotten little sleep in. She sighed, wondering
if she’d ever sleep well without Roark next to her again. The last
three nights at Silver Water Keep, when they’d been able to sleep
through the nights together, had been a wonderful gift. One she
silently sent out her thanks to Laird and Lady MacLeod for.
Lifting the spyglass, she put it to her eye,
scanning the sea without really expecting to see anything, but
needing something, anything, to occupy her mind. A dark spot
blinked in and out of sight to the northeast and Alina held the
spyglass steady, watching as the spot slowly grew in size from a
black bobbing blob to the solid mass of a ship’s hull with white
sails overhead. She started to call down to the captain and then
stopped and refocused. There were two smaller ships flanking the
larger one.
“Captain Wallis,” she yelled and pointed.
“There’s a trading ship flanked by two long-boats heading our way
from the northeast.”
“Longboats?” he yelled up at her. “Northern
longboats?”
Alina took another look through the spyglass.
“By the looks of them, aye, Northern long-boats.”
Warships.
“Have they seen us?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell.”
The captain gave orders to turn the Trade
Wind south. Alina watched with growing dread as the ship and
the longboats turned south as well.
“They’ve not only seen us,” she called down
to the captain. “They’re coming after us. The longboats are gaining
on us.”
The Trade Wind was already at full
sail and was still no match for longboats being oared by ten and
two burly Northmen, especially when the wind chose to die down to a
gentle breeze.
“Damnation.” What was it with the wind on
this cursed sea?
The longboats were closing in fast enough she
didn’t need the spyglass to watch them. Below her, the crew started
readying for a fight, bringing up long and short swords and
positioning themselves along the rails with bows and arrows. Alina
palmed the hilt of her waist blade, a paltry weapon against a man
with a sword, though it would at least give her the choice of
taking her own life before a marauder was able to climb the mast to
the crow’s nest. She could still end up a slave in some king’s
household, or more likely held for ransom once the Northmen found
out who she was. Either way, she would lose her chance to save
Roark.
She put the spyglass back to her eye and
focused on the man standing at the prow of the nearest longboat. A
big, barrel-chested Northman with short-cropped hair and a square
jaw whose gaze was as sharp as honed steel even from a
distance.
“Uncle Bors?”
She moved her focus to the trade ship’s prow,
which was carved into the shape of a screaming eagle’s head. She
focused on the deck, where a tall man with white-blond hair stood
beside a woman whose golden-brown hair was blowing around a
familiar oval face.
“Captain Wallis,” she yelled, laughing and
pointing. “It’s the Sea Eagle, my father’s ship.” And her
father and her mother were on it.
Alina was off the small boat and climbing the
rope ladder onto the Sea Eagle before Captain Wallis had
tied the small boat off to the ship’s side. When she reached the
top rung, her father’s face was beaming down at her. He held out
his hand and helped pull her up and over the rail.
“Oh, Father,” she cried as he pulled her into
his arms. “I thought I might never see you or Mother again.” She
laughed through her tears as her mother joined their embrace, and
it was as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her
shoulders. She kissed her mother’s cheek, which was as wet with
tears as her own, and grinned as her father ruffled her hair and
took in her tunic and breeches.
“It’s a long story,” Alina said.
“One I look forward to hearing,” her father
said, and then pulled her and her mother into his arms once
more.
“We were so afraid we’d lost you,” her mother
whispered. “Oh, Alina, my beautiful girl. Are you, you’ve not
been…?”
“I’m well, Mother, truly.”
Her mother sniffed and nodded, and held tight
to Alina’s hand as the crew shouted out greetings to her.
“Uncle Han,” she cried as the slim,
black-haired Far Easterner bristling with blades stepped up and
hugged her. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Not as glad as I to see you, missy,” he
said, grinning from ear to ear. He nodded toward the longboat
pulling up beside the ship from which Bors stood glaring up at
them. “Bors’s gonna be so jealous I get hug you first.”
Alina laughed. As scary-looking as he was,
her Uncle Bors was a big old softy. “He’ll get over it,” she
said.
The captain and the first mate from the
Trade Wind climbed aboard and Alina introduced them.
“Father, Mother, this is Captain Wallis and
his first mate, Brady. They were taking me back to Sea Ridge.”
“Captain.” Her father held out his hand to
Wallis. “Thank you. We owe you a great debt for bringing our
daughter to us.”
“It’s my honor, King Jerrik,” Wallis said,
shaking his hand. He reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out
Alina’s pearl necklace and held it out to her. “Seeing as how I
didn’t take you all the way to Sea Ridge, I’d feel wrong keeping
this.”
“It’s yours,” Alina told him. “You got me
back to my parents. You’ve fulfilled your part of the bargain.”
“I tell you what, Captain,” her father said,
taking the necklace from Wallis and looping it over Alina’s head.
“I’ll make sure you’re paid what the necklace is worth, either in
coin or trade.” He glanced at the Trade Wind. “You’ve traded
in Sea Ridge before. I never forget a face or a ship.”
“Aye, King Jerrik, three times. This trip’ll
be our fourth, which is one of the reasons I agreed to take your
daughter onboard.”
Her father cocked his head, his blue eyes
piercing. “Why would you not?”
Wallis looked to Alina.
“As I said, it’s a long story,” she told her
father. “One I will explain in detail once we’re on our way to the
Green Isles.”
“To Silver Water Keep?” her mother said.
“No.” Alina shook her head, curious her
mother asked about the keep by name. In all the tales of the Lion
and the Swan she’d heard, it had only ever been told that Oona the
Swan had come from the Green Isles. The name of her family home had
never been mentioned. She wanted to ask her mother how she knew of
Silver Water Keep, but like many other things, the explanation
would have to wait. “We need to sail to North Shore Keep, on the
Long Firth,” she said. “The home of Laird Roger MacKinnon, Roark’s
patron, the man he and Leif abducted me for. The sooner we get
there, the better.”