They had already caught the attention of the MacLeod watchmen, and a number of them set out at a run to intercept them. Farlan remained outwardly calm and kept a steady pace. They could see the figures, though, scrambling and heading toward them.
“Will they challenge us?” Rhian asked in a whisper. “Attack us?”
“A lone warrior and a woman? Nay, though I doubt Rory will welcome my presence here again. Ah, now—they ha’ recognized me and sent for him. Here he comes.”
Terror gripped Rhian by the throat and invaded her mind, raw and bright. If they did come under attack, Farlan would fight to defend her. Outnumbered, he would die. Perhaps they both would.
She would die for the sake of love.
There’d been a time she would never have believed it, that she could trade her safety, trade her known existence, for what she considered a fanciful emotion. That had been before Leith.
She could see a man who must be Rory. He had taken the place at the head of the others, pelting toward them. A big man with long black hair that flew behind him, shining in the sun. Heavily armed.
She wanted to draw back then, but Farlan just kept walking. His hand hovered over the hilt of his sword, but he kept on steadily. God bless him.
She stole a look up into his face—smooth and apparently calm. “Thank ye. Thank ye for this. If I do no’ ha’ a chance to say—”
“Here he comes. Do no’ be afraid. He will be angry and will likely shout.”
Rhian fixed her narrowed gaze on the black-haired man who did indeed appear angry. A train of other armed men came after him. including—
All the breath left her body. Her feet seemed to leave the turf. She floated rather than walked.
Leith came behind Rory at a jog, his gaze fixed upon her.
And suddenly nothing else mattered. Pulled forward by the anchor beneath her heart, she let go of Farlan’s arm and ran forward. Ran to Leith, until an arm came out to block her way like an iron bar extended. “Stay!”
A furious Rory it was who halted her passage. He possessed an enraged face that contained a pair of blazing green eyes and enough ire to halt an army.
Rhian stopped. She could do nothing else. So, this was the Chief MacLeod.
“Who in Satan’s realm are ye?”
“Do no’ touch her. Do no’ touch her!” The bellow sounded just as Leith barreled into Rory and knocked him aside. His hands came up and closed on Rhian’s arms.
Her world fell immediately into place, all the pieces coming together one after the other, the ache beneath her heart blooming into a blaze of sheer rightness.
How could she have been such a fool as to mourn for her fire? She carried it within her. It burned for him.
Leith’s eyes, gray blue like the sky above his head, embraced her. In them lay amazement, incredulous wonder, and gratitude as deep as the loch. In his touch on her arms lay all the comfort she would ever need.
Beside them, Rory sputtered curses. His brilliant gaze swept over Rhian and Leith before he turned on Farlan with a growl.
“Ye are no’ welcome here, traitor.”
Farlan made a placating gesture. “I will no’ stay. I come only to deliver Mistress MacBeith safely where she belongs.”
“Mistress MacBeith?” Rory turned on Rhian and Leith. His gaze swept over his cousin with inestimable fury. “So this be another o’ MacBeith’s accursed daughters?”
“I am.” From somewhere—perhaps from the strength of what flowed to her from Leith—Rhian found the courage to speak.
Rory sneered. “Ye are no’ welcome here either.”
Leith stepped forward. Rhian could feel him trembling, every muscle aquiver, not with weakness but with the force of his determination.
“She stays. She stays, Rory, as she chooses. Else I walk awa’ wi’ her now. Wi’ her and Farlan.”
Rory looked like he’d been struck. Color came and went in his face, leaving it pale, and the desire for murder stood in his eyes. They flicked to Rhian, and for an instant she was sure he would knock Leith down, and possibly her also.
