Heart's Thief (Highland Bodyguards, Book 2) (6 page)

Sabine’s gaze shot past Colin’s looming form. Miles and his horse were just being swallowed by the misty gloom ahead. She could call out to him, but then if Colin managed to overpower both her and Miles, word would never reach Fabian that he had been compromised.

Nay, Miles couldn’t help her now. She had to help herself.

Sabine wrapped one hand around her saddle’s pommel, then snatched the reins above where Colin’s large hand held them.

With a deep breath and a fleeting prayer, she dug her heels into the mare’s flanks hard and jerked back on the reins with all her strength.

The animal, already spooked from Colin’s sudden appearance, neighed in distress and reared again. Sabine clung to the pommel for dear life. She heard Colin curse over the horse’s cry, and his hand vanished from the reins.

Now his own animal danced wildly back from the rearing mare, its ears flat.

As the mare’s front hooves connected with the ground, Sabine knew she would only have this one heartbeat of distraction to escape.

Just as Colin got his steed under control, she jerked the mare around, pointing her toward the shadowy forests to the west. Sabine kicked the horse once more, slapping the reins. The mare bolted forward, unleashing all her pent energy in a swift gallop.

Though the mare had already proven herself brave-hearted and spritely, there was no way she could outrun Colin’s enormous stallion on the open road, even with the mud slowing both of them down. Nay, Sabine’s only chance of escape would be to lose him in the woods. She wasn’t familiar with these forests, but she prayed she could evade Colin and his steed in the tightly packed trees and tangling underbrush.

Behind her, she heard Colin curse again as he gave chase. She leaned low over the mare’s neck, whispering encouragements as she flew across the open space separating Dumfries’s town wall and the looming forest.

Pounding hooves drew closer behind her. She dared a glance over her shoulder. Colin was hunched low, his golden hair nigh glowing in the diffuse gray light. The black stallion surged forward, closing the distance between them with each long, powerful stride.

Sabine urged the mare on, watching the forest line draw nearer. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Colin inching up on her right side. His stallion’s head was even with her mare’s flank, then the back of her saddle, then her neck.

Just as Colin’s large hand darted out toward her reins once more, they both plunged headlong into the tree line.

Colin was forced to veer away as a row of trees whizzed by between their horses. Sabine tugged the mare to the left, putting more distance between them.

It was even darker under the cover of the trees. Strange shadows loomed toward her as she pushed her horse deeper into the woods.

The mare was forced to slow as she wove around trees and clambered over fallen logs. Shrubs clawed at Sabine’s cloak and skirts. Branches whipped at her face. Her hood had fallen back in her desperate dash away from Colin, and now twigs tangled in her unbound hair.

A loud snap behind her sent her heart jumping into her throat.

“Ye’ll no’ lose me so easily, lass.” Colin’s voice echoed through the misty woods not far away.

Despite the mare’s caution in the dark, uneven terrain, Sabine squeezed her heels and snapped the reins again. The horse whinnied her objection but quickened her pace.

Sabine shot a look over her shoulder. Emerging between the trees, Colin’s black steed strode forward as if stepping from a nightmare. Shrubs parted around the stallion’s powerful chest as Colin urged him on.

Though Colin’s face was shrouded in shadow, a chilling shudder raced through her as she felt more than saw his gaze lock on her.

The pounding of her own blood was nigh deafening, her breath ragged in her throat. Never before had she sensed her death so close at hand.

Just then, her mare placed a hoof into a bramble of ferns. What should have been solid ground under the ferns suddenly gave way. Dimly, Sabine realized that the mare had actually stepped on a rotted out fallen log.

The mare stumbled forward with a snort of surprise. Sabine was sent tumbling over the horse’s neck.

As the dark forest floor raced toward her, a scream ripped from her throat. She thrust out her arms, but there wasn’t enough time to catch herself. She turned, landing on her left arm and rolling to the side.

A sickening pop reverberated in her shoulder. Pain, sharp and hot, washed through her. Her head spun as her stomach lurched into her throat at the agony radiating from her left shoulder.

Colin bit out an oath not far away. She could feel the vibrations of his horse’s hooves through the forest floor where she lay on her side.

God, nay
. She could not give up. She would not die lying like a tattered rag doll in the muddy ferns.

Rolling to her right side, she dragged herself to her feet. Her left arm dangled limply, the shoulder hanging unnaturally low. It was likely dislocated. She could survive that—but she would not survive if she were taken down for opening the King of Scotland’s missive.

Sabine reached for the mare, who had regained her footing, but the poor animal was so spooked that she nickered and sidestepped out of Sabine’s reach.

Still, she refused to surrender. Clutching her limp left arm to her side, she took off on foot.

“Wait, lass!” Colin’s voice behind her was no longer so hard-edged. Instead, a note of fear sliced through it.

It couldn’t be that he feared for her safety, running off through the darkened woods with a dislocated shoulder. Nay, he was her enemy, she reasoned dimly through the searing pain. He was likely only worried that he would have a hard time maneuvering his horse after her.

With each pounding step, a fresh bolt of pain jolted through her. She clamped her teeth shut on a sob, holding the arm closer to her body to try to stop it from jostling.

She sensed more than heard Colin giving chase behind her, so loud was the hammering of blood in her ears. She darted and was rewarded with a muttered curse from him. Aye, she still had a chance of evading him if he remained on horseback.

As if he had read her thoughts, she heard a thump behind her that could only be the sound of Colin dismounting. Now it was her turn to curse.

She dared a glance back. He was sprinting after her, his tawny hair streaming behind him. He moved like a ghost, his feet gliding impossibly smoothly over the uneven forest floor. Nay, not like a ghost—like a lion on the hunt.

Just then her foot snagged on a protruding root. She tumbled to the ground, managing to land on her right side this time. Even still, agony tore through her like hot lightning as her left shoulder reverberated with the impact.

She couldn’t suppress the sob of pain this time. She tried to roll to her feet once more, but her body screamed its protest.

Suddenly, Colin’s looming form filled her vision.

“Are ye mad, lass?” he demanded. “Ye could have broken yer neck.”

To her pain-addled brain, he seemed even larger and broader than he had at the inn. Somehow his shadowed figure grew and stretched before her eyes.

Her stomach lurched again, and she had to swallow hard to keep from losing its meager contents.

“Lucky for me yer head is still attached to yer shoulders,” he said, his voice low and flat. “I’ll have my answers now, if ye please.”

Colin bent over her, his bright blue eyes materializing from the shadows. A big hand reached toward her to wrap around her left arm.

So it was to be torture, then. Fabian had warned her that if she were ever captured, death would be made slow and painful. She was the most dangerous kind of thief, after all—a thief of secrets.

If Colin intended to tweak her left arm, at least she wouldn’t last long. Already, darkness that had naught to do with the night-shrouded forest was creeping in at the edges of her vision.

She had always vowed to Fabian that she would never spill his secrets, no matter what torture was applied. But now that she was nigh drowning in agony, she could only hope that unconsciousness would save her from betraying the only person who’d ever cared for her.

As Colin’s hand closed around her limp arm, her ears filled with her own tormented scream.

The firm pressure of his hand suddenly vanished.

“Christ,” he muttered. “Yer shoulder is dislocated.”

She would have laughed at his obviousness, but she was too busy fighting against the specks of black floating in her vision and the nausea roiling in her stomach.

“Get on with it, then,” she mumbled. “If you mean to have answers, do your worst.”

Only after the words were out did she realize through the haze of pain that she hadn’t used her Lowland accent, and instead had slipped back into her natural-born English one.

She heard him suck in a breath through his teeth.

“Ye are
English
.” He spat the word out as if it tasted bitter on his tongue.

It didn’t matter now, she supposed distantly. He would torture and kill her either way. But judging from the hatred in his voice at realizing she was English, mayhap he would find a way to make this worse for her.

She clenched her teeth, bracing for the fresh surge of pain she knew was coming.

But his hand closed around her good arm instead.

He pulled her to her feet before him, his eyes sharp and searching through the black spots in her vision. He swayed before her—or rather, she swayed, she realized dimly.

Suddenly she was being lifted as if she weighed naught at all. Colin tucked her against his broad chest, her hurt arm on the outside so that it could nestle limply against her torso.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Taking ye back to Ruith.” His voice rumbled through his chest where her good shoulder pressed against it. “And then I’m going to find a good spot to reset yer damned shoulder.”

The words were spoken with the sharpness of anger, but for some reason he seemed more annoyed than filled with vicious intent. Even still, mayhap he would draw out the pain, use the resetting of her shoulder as some twisted torture technique. She shuddered against him at the thought.

He murmured another curse, his arms tightening slightly around her.

The forest blurred as he walked. She tried to keep her eyes open, but they kept wanting to lower. Behind the darkness of her lids, however, the world spun dangerously, so she forced herself to drag them up.

A few minutes later, he set her on her feet, keeping a hand fastened on her good arm to hold her upright. With his other hand, he spun his cloak off his shoulders and tossed it onto the damp forest floor.

She heard the black stallion stamp a hoof nearby. Was this Ruith? Distantly, she wondered what had become of the brave little mare.

Then he was easing her back onto his cloak. Why was he doing all this for her? It made no sense. Was he luring her into a false sense of comfort, only to tear it all away, thus making her torture all the more brutal? That was how the world worked, after all—people were cruel and self-serving, and kindness was reserved for the fortunate, wealthy few.

Sabine groaned as she came to rest on her back. Her gaze lazily roamed the little window of overcast sky framed by dark treetops until Colin loomed over her once more.

“This will hurt a mite, lass,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft.

He took hold of her left elbow and wrist, then wedged his big knee into her armpit. She sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. Aye, it hurt just to have his hands on the cursed arm.

“Can ye count backward from ten, lass?”

“Aye, of course I can count—forward and backward.” It took her a moment to recognize the haughty voice as her own.

Fabian had been right—pain would loosen even the most guarded of tongues. She clamped her jaws together once more.

“Well then, get on with it,” Colin shot back.

She dragged in a breath and began counting aloud. She knew what was coming—when she reached one, he would torque her aching arm. She’d heard of the counting technique. Fabian said it was used to make victims feel as if it was in their control to avoid the pain of torture. If she only answered his questions before she got to one, she could be free of the pain.

“Four…three…” Sabine swallowed and drew in a breath.

But before she reached one, his hands tightened on her. A fraction of a second later, he yanked hard on her arm, driving his knee against her armpit.

A loud thunk filled the air as her shoulder popped back into place.

Just before Sabine’s mind at last slipped into blessed unconsciousness, a strange thought occurred to her.

She hadn’t told him aught, and yet as her shoulder slid into place, the pain dropped off substantially.

Why would he do that? What kind of man was this Highland warrior?

It was Colin’s habit to rise at dawn—too many years as a warrior meant that whether he slept in a downy bed or on the muddy ground, the first hints of morning light would rouse him.

It didn’t matter that he’d only slept a few hours last night. When the sun began to warm the eastern horizon, he woke.

He tucked the length of green and blue MacKay plaid that he’d used as a bedroll back into Ruith’s saddlebags. Then he set about making a fire, for although the August air did not yet hold the sting of fall, everything he wore was damp.

At least the rain had finally let up during the night. He didn’t know what he would have done with the unconscious lass lying on his cloak nearby if they had been caught in a storm.

All morning, he was careful not to stare at her, yet his thoughts were consumed by her.

What was he to do with the lass?

If he rode back to Lochmaben now, he could deliver her to the Bruce. The King needed to know that his suspicions had been correct, and he’d want to find out as much as he could from the lass about who she worked for.

But then again, the lass had led him on one hell of a chase. They were more than an hour west of Dumfries now. It had taken him a day and a half just to get this far from Lochmaben. If he rode back to the King’s camp, he would be setting himself back from reaching Ireland by three full days.

The Bruce had conveyed in no uncertain terms that the missive Colin carried for the King’s brother, Edward Bruce, was of utmost importance—and urgency. Though Colin didn’t know the exact contents of the missive, he could guess that it had something to do with a tactical decision in Edward Bruce’s ongoing quest to claim Ireland in the name of the King of Scotland. Would a three-day delay cost men’s lives?

His thoughts roiled throughout the morning as he slowly made camp. All the while, the lass slept.

When he could no longer find aught with which to busy his hands, he squatted across the fire from where she lay and let himself truly look at her.

In the weak gray light of the overcast day, her skin looked pale. It stood out starkly against her dark pillow of hair and their two cloaks. Her delicately carved cheeks bore no hint of a healthy flush. At least her soft, full lips were rosy.

Her slow, steady breath made her gently curved chest rise and fall rhythmically. He’d flipped the edges of her cloak over her after she’d passed out, but he imagined that the rest of her skin was just as milky white as her face.

She looked innocent in sleep. He clenched his hands against the memory of the feel of her in his arms. She’d been so slight, so fragile, despite her valiant determination to flee him.

Colin shook himself. She was a bloody spy, and an English one at that. Had he learned naught from Joan’s betrayal? He thought he’d rid himself of the tendency to be blinded by a lass’s beauty, and yet here he was, imagining that the wee lass lying before him was innocent.

She’d already duped him once. He’d be damned if he let her do it again.

As Colin took up a stick and began whittling it idly, he felt himself being watched. He looked across the fire to find the lass’s big hazel eyes observing him guardedly.

“Morning,” he said. He looked up at the heavily clouded sky. “Or rather, afternoon.”

“How long did I…” Her voice was rough and low from disuse.

Colin stood, throwing the stick into the fire but keeping a firm grasp on his knife. He stepped around the fire and to Ruith’s side, digging in one of the saddlebags for his waterskin.

When he turned and approached her, those green-gold eyes rounded, locking on the blade in his hand. He tossed the waterskin next to her, then resumed his crouch on the other side of the fire, taking up a new stick.

She didn’t move for a long time. Colin glanced up at her, only to find confusion lurking in the depths of her eyes. Her dark brows winged down, furrowing her creamy skin. At last, she took up the waterskin with her good hand and took a long drag.

Colin watched her slim throat bob as she drank. “I had begun to worry that ye wouldnae wake at all today.”

She wiped the back of her hand across her lips, still watching him nervously.

“What is yer name?”

She stared at him silently.

He sighed. How the bloody hell was he supposed to proceed with a hostile, tight-lipped Englishwoman spy?

“I take it ye are no’ a Lowland Armstrong, so that much at least is established. Is yer given name really Sabine?”

She shifted slightly, wincing as she gingerly repositioned her left arm across her body.

Colin gritted his teeth. Perhaps a new approach was needed.

“Have ye ever dislocated that shoulder before?”

After a pause, she shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his.

At last, a response.

“It will pain ye for several days, but if I set it correctly, it shouldnae be nearly as bad as before. How does it feel?”

She swallowed, her wary eyes still pinning him. “It…is better,” she said finally. “It is stiff and sore, but the sharp pain from last night is gone.”

“Good. Ye’ll need to wear a sling on it in the coming days.”

Again, confusion, followed quickly by guardedness, flashed across her features.

Colin stood again and retrieved a few dry biscuits from his saddlebag. When he turned once more to her, terror had replaced her wariness. Her lips paled as she pressed them together, her eyes wide on the knife he still carried.

He crouched next to her, and she flinched back. “Don’t—” she breathed.

“Dinnae what? Keep ye alive by feeding ye this stuff?” he snapped, holding up the biscuits.

“You mean…you aren’t going to torture me?”

Christ
. What had the lass been through to make her assume he would ply her flesh with his dagger? Aye, she was a criminal, but he wasn’t a monster.

“Nay, I’m no’ going to torture ye. I’ve never meted out violence on a woman—enemy or nay. I may be a Highlander, but I am no’ a barbarian.”

Her features softened with surprise, and she suddenly looked younger—not some seasoned criminal but a lass barely into womanhood.

“Then…then what will you do with me?”

Colin dragged a hand through his hair. Bloody hell, he was in a bind. The Bruce had given him two equally important missions, and he could only think of one way to accomplish both of them.

“I’m taking ye with me.”

Her eyes rounded again, and he noticed the intricate pattern of gold flakes in their green depths. “W-where?”

“West. That’s all ye need to ken for the time being.”

She glanced at where Ruith stood tethered, her brows furrowing once more.

“What happened to my mare?”

“She was so spooked after she unseated ye that she took off headed back toward Dumfries. Ye’re lucky ye didnae lame the poor animal. As it is, someone will be verra happy to find her.”

“Then what am I to ride?”

“Ye’ll ride with me. That way I can be sure ye willnae attempt some wild flight again.”

The lass sat mutely while Colin broke their rudimentary camp. He kicked damp soil over the fire, tucked his blade into his boot, and tightened the flaps over Ruith’s saddlebags.

He also unfastened his sword, which was strapped to the outside of one of the bags, and belted it around his waist. Though he would have liked to check the blade to make sure no moisture had gotten into the sheath, he imagined that doing so would only send the lass into a panic again.

At last he turned to her, a scrap of his MacKay plaid in his hands. Crouching, he looped the strip of plaid over her injured shoulder and under her arm. As he tied off the sling, she watched him as a doe watches a wolf.

Though he didn’t seek to terrorize her, it was good that she remembered their roles—they were enemies, and she was now his captive.

He lifted her by her good elbow from the forest floor, then shook out his cloak, which had served as her bedroll.

Wrapping his hands around her waist, he lifted her onto the saddle. As she settled herself, he spun his cloak around his shoulders despite its dampness.

Damn
. The material smelled of wet wool and ferns and soil, but also something soft and feminine. Was that the scent of the lass’s hair?

“My name truly is Sabine, by the way.”

He stilled at her quietly spoken words.

“Sabine what?”

Her good hand rose to her collarbone, where the thin chain around her neck disappeared into her bodice. “Just Sabine. I don’t have any other name.”

He forced his mouth into a wolfish smile, making his eyes go hard for what he had to do next. “I am Colin MacKay. Pleasure to meet ye.”

Just as the corners of her rosy mouth began to relax, he produced a short length of rope and began binding her good wrist to the saddle’s pommel.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“As I said, I cannae have ye attempting to slip away again,” he replied flatly.

Outrage flared in her gaze, but she clamped her lips shut.

Colin hoisted himself into the saddle behind her, his thighs sliding around hers and her bottom fitting snugly against his groin. That soft, feminine scent wafted to his nostrils again. Aye, it was definitely drifting from Sabine’s sable hair.

It would take him a fortnight to reach Ireland, deliver his missive, and return to Lochmaben where he could hand Sabine over for the King’s judgement.

Only a fortnight, he told himself as he spurred Ruith forward. He could get through one fortnight.