“Put down your sword, MacCoinnich, and we’ll let you live to see another day.”
The man’s accent was English, not the thick, Scottish brogue she’d heard since arriving in Scotland.
The animal under them pranced.
Helen held her breath.
A fight would be futile. They’d die. The men surrounding them were similar in stature to her hero, yet all of them had a deadened gaze behind their eyes. Haunting.
One man aimed an arrow straight at her chest. The thought of outrunning it would mean suicide.
“What do you want?” MacCoinnich asked.
“You, to start with. And then your companion. She appears quite inviting dressed as she is. Wouldn’t you say, men?”
The leader led the laughter erupting around her. She knotted her fist into MacCoinnich’s thigh.
This was bad. Very, very bad.
MacCoinnich’s breath brushed against her ear. “Follow Kong, my horse,” he uttered.
Maybe he had a plan. A plan of escape.
Yet as the thought solidified in her mind, their enemies drew closer.
Her hero lowered his sword, but his body screamed with tension.
The predatory cry of a bird filled the air and several of the men shot their attention above their heads. The horse carrying the warrior holding the bow pitched onto his back legs, forcing the man to lose his aim to stay on the animal.
MacCoinnich drew his sword high, and wrapped his free arm tightly around Helen.
All the horses started to prance, their riders struggled to get them under control.
Kong leapt toward an opening between the men, and it was all Helen could do to stay mounted. The other horses didn’t seem to be able to move, but that didn’t stop the men from fighting. One threw himself off his horse and clashed swords with MacCoinnich.
“Grab the girl!”
Kong’s exit was blocked and the horse spun around.
Helen’s gaze collided with one of the men trying to kill them. From the ground, he reached for her leg. She pulled her leg back, retreating from his fingers. And when he moved closer, she thrust her heel as hard as she could at the side of the man’s head. When he fell back, another man took his place. This one slashed at her with a sword. The skin on her leg started to burn.
“Hold on, Helen,” MacCoinnich said behind her. “Trust me.”
The words left his mouth and the sky started buzzing with noise.
The man who’d sliced her leg open didn’t stop to glance at the sky. He descended with death in his eyes.
Suddenly, her hero jumped off the horse, and Kong ran at breakneck speed into the forest with Helen crouched low over his back. She tightened her legs around his flanks, but still didn’t think she could hold her seat. The voices behind her started to fade, but Helen didn’t feel any relief from it. She didn’t dare look back.
This was a nightmare.
Dammit, she wanted to wake up.
Kong’s gait shifted from a full run to a slower gallop. The change jarred Helen and sent her tumbling off the side of the horse.
Air rushed from her lungs when she hit the ground.
Kong continued to run away, leaving Helen less than a half a mile from the fighting men and struggling for breath. Alone on an open path, she stumbled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg, and scrambled behind a large tree.
She needed to focus. Her breath came in short gasping pants, while her heart raced in her chest so quickly she could hear her own blood gushing through her veins.
The knife MacCoinnich had pressed into her hand was her only defense if the men returned. Helen held it in front of her, and her eyes darted, following every noise in the forest.
As adrenaline started to subside, the pain from her leg started to scream. Unable to avoid facing the injury any longer, Helen glanced down at the three-inch gash on her calf. It wasn’t horribly deep, but it hurt like hell. Some gauze and an antibiotic was all she needed. She colored herself lucky since the sword that did the damage was large enough to amputate her leg with a single blow.
Using the knife, Helen cut away a portion of her shirt and pressed the cloth into her wound. With blood seeping through her fingers, she wondered if the scent would attract animals from the woods.
She had to keep moving. But where?
With the loose ends of the cotton tied together, she attempted to stand. Everything hurt.
After moving only a few yards in the direction the horse had run, Helen tripped on a stump.
Anger and frustration welled inside, threatening tears. “Dammit!”
Boy, did she want to sob big fat tears that would serve no purpose.
She didn’t. Instead, she picked herself up off the ground and began walking again.
A twig behind her snapped.
She spun.
Two sets of angry eyes, belonging to two equally angry men, stared at her.
If these two managed to follow her, Helen couldn’t help but wonder if MacCoinnich had died in the fight.
The thought of her life ending in a foreign land, at the hands of men dressed in ancient warrior garb, had her blinking back tears. One managed to escape, trickling down her cheek.
At the sight of her weakness, the men laughed. “No need to fret,” one of the men said as he stepped closer to her.
“Oh, she should fret,” said the other man who’d met her foot with his face. He didn’t hold back his anger.
Helen backed up with each of their advancing steps.
Why had she left home?
More tears clouded her eyes.
She thought she heard a growl in the woods behind her, but couldn’t risk turning away from the men to look.
Instead, Helen curled her arms into her chest and wept, “I want to go home. Please, just let me go home.”
The world around her tilted and once again fell away.
Chapter Four
Amber MacCoinnich cried out in physical pain. “Not again.” Grief swelled in her gut, doubling her over until she had to sit or risk falling. Her empathic gift suffocated her. The loss of Simon blanketed her with sorrow. She’d only experienced this feeling once before in her short life. It had happened years ago, when Grainna cursed her older brother Fin and his wife, Lizzy, sending them into the future. The memory of that loss swelled in her mind, even though Lizzy and Fin eventually made their way home.
The door to her room sprung open, her sister-in-law Lizzy tumbled through. “Simon’s gone.”
“Aye.”
Her body ached with his loss. The void of a loved one’s death was the only thing that compared.
Desperation marred Lizzy’s face. Her son was gone. In a heartbeat, in a one blink of an eye—gone.
Amber closed her eyes and willed the pain gripping her stomach to recede. She focused her gift, reaching for some hope. But she didn’t feel any. She had no way of knowing if Simon was dead, or swept away by some magical force.