All they could do was hold their breath and hope the danger passed them by.
Chapter Thirty-One
Bradana now knewhow prey must feel when the hunter passed near. The tiny creature, its heart beating furiously while the shadow of the hawk moved over. The rabbit deep in its burrow awaiting the fox.
Alba was their burrow now, this dense patch of young brush all twisted up around them like defensive walls. Where her beloved hound lay and bled. Where Adair…
Och, to see him there giving barely a sign that he’d been pierced through by one of their hunters’ filthy arrows, making nary a sound, his gray-green eyes wide in the deep gloom and his skin milk-white. To see him suffering.
It fair convulsed her heart.
But aye, now they must keep still. Silent. For she could hear their pursuers moving through the forest behind them. Hear the crack and rattle of branches beneath the hooves of the ponies. The breath of their mounts. A distant murmur of voices that screamed danger.
Their own ponies stood quiet with their heads drooping, too tired to move. Bradana knelt with her hand on Wen’s side, keeping him still, and her gaze on the man she loved.
The man she loved.
She had brought him to this. She had, with her willful disobedience to her fate. With her heart’s choice of him. Now he knelt beside her and bled, and she—she had naught with which to heal or comfort him.
But the sounds of the searchers grew steadily more distant. At last, she heard a shout far away to the right. Mican’s voice calling.
Were they giving up the search? Was it a trick?
The young trees all around them might be a trap as well as a protection. Yet she remained still. Adair held her with his gaze, lifted a finger to his lips in a cautionary gesture.
She nodded. By some great miracle, they might have escaped notice. They would have to wait and find out.
Her thoughts stumbled wildly as she wondered how she might help these two she loved best in the world. If she lost either of them—
The tears came again and she wept them silently. Wen strained to look up at her and licked her hand.
All her fault, aye. What had she been thinking, supposing she could lead them through the wilds of Alba safely? Adair had trusted her. And now, Mican knew they were out here.
He would not stop looking. He wanted revenge, and without Kendrick here to assure a semblance of fairness, anything could happen if they fell into his hands, here on his ground.
She it was who had brought them to this. She who must save them.
Tears would not help. She choked them back and listened while the sounds of the hunters died away and the silence of Alba took hold all around them.
Only then did she touch Adair’s arm, pull him around so she could see the place where the arrow had pierced him.
For an instant, she went dizzy. Black and red dots danced before her eyes, and even though she knelt, she feared she would fall.
The shaft had broken off the span of a man’s hand from Adair’s shoulder. The iron head was still buried in his flesh—the same shoulder that had sustained the dire wound when they fled Kendrick’s lands.
Slick red blood matted his tunic and his hair, all down his back.
Oh, by the gods. By the holy moon—
Adair’s gaze caught hers and he clasped her hand. “Whisht, now. ’Tis nay so bad,” he breathed, a mere whisper.
“Nay so bad?” Her gaze must have betrayed her disbelief.
One side of his mouth quirked. “I am moving under my own power. Wen is not. We had best take care o’ him first.”
“But—”
“I can hear water, can ye not? There must be a stream nearby. We will need clear water to wash his wound.”
