AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The gallops reached her at the same moment she turned to him. “What is this all about, you betraying little liar?” He hissed, launching himself down on sloshing ground.
Hazel eyes wide open, water trickling from her long lashes, her lips parted. “Drostan.” She breathed.
He dropped his eyes to see a bundle sleeping in her arms wrapped in several blankets. “What kind of mother subjects her child to this weather for no sensible reason?”
His strong wet arms stretched and took the bairn from her. “No.” Her tone came low and ragged with despair.
She came down from her mount and followed him. “Drostan, please.”
Her words cut at him, but he steeled himself against their appeal. “My son will enjoy the life I can offer him, instead of roaming in woods like a nomad!”
A shivering dainty hand made a bee line to her temple to remove the auburn plastered strands, and her hood fell down her shoulders. Her face streaked with raindrops came to the grey afternoon light. It gave him pause. Ashen cheeks, trembling lips, tense jaw, pleated brows. And her eyes, bluidy hell, her eyes! Swollen with dark smudges under them and such an unfathomable haunted expression in their hazel depths he owned this urge to take her in his arms and offer solace.
But he could not melt into her feminine allure. Would not. A pivot on his hills, he strode to his horse, Ewan pressed against his chest.
“Drostan, do not do this.” She murmured so softly the sound of the rain almost covered it.
The surrounding commotion must have awoken Ewan. “Papa.” He called between drowsy and happy. “Are you coming with us?”
Freya’s and Drostan’s gazes locked for long moments in a communication neither could understand properly.
“No.” He lowered his attention to the boy. “We are going home, mo bhalach.”
At that, the wee bairn sat on his arms. “We cannot.” He rubbed his eyes with the blanket. “Mama was crying. She asked me if I accepted to go away with her.”
When Drostan sought her anew, she had turned her back to him. “Why was she crying, son?” She did not put an act with her bedraggled state, he guessed.
“I do not know. She fell on the grass when I fed Loch.”
“Loch?” He asked quizzical.
“Ewan’s nickname for the mare.” Informed Freya.
“What is going on, Freya?” He forced the question.
Her stance crumpled even more as she shook her head in quick, nervous movements. “I must take Ewan and leave.”
Drostan let air forcefully through his nostrils. There was something amiss here on which he could not put his finger. He installed them with all comfort in a place where he would not impose on her. Accepted her terms on separate living. Did not demand his husband’s and father’s rights. What else would he compromise? But he got no answers. She fulfilled no promises. And kept running as if the devil was on her heels. Maybe it was. He did not know its name.
“Is there someone threatening you?” He threw, staring at her fixedly through the downpour.
Lashes drooped, shielding her gaze as her head turned to the side. “Of course not.”
“Tell me!” He insisted impatient.
Her glare returned to his. “No.” The low voice aired not too convincing.
“Then what?” His hard voice pushed.
Her ashen skin paled further, her lips gone greyish. Hazel focus darted to Ewan and back to him, seeming not to want to say it in front of the child. He went to sit the boy on the mare a few yards ahead and walked to where she stood.
Their glower meshed for several seconds when she gulped in wet air. “Can you not accept I do not want you?” She tilted her chin up, but her lips trembled more than before. “I do not care about you. Never did.” Now her complexion acquired a greenish hue. “Go away.” She added merciless.
Her words hit him like a million arrows, tearing at him, burning at him, bleeding at him. They destroyed one last shaft of light inside. As if something shrivelled, died, blackened. Vanished.
Rain ran down her cheeks making it seem like tears. Only she continued that hard gaze on him, everything in her clenched and locked.
Long fingers raked his soaked hair, and he nodded with an exhale. “I see.”
