"She could have sent word," she said finally. "She didnae need to send a man with rope."
"I sent word. Three times." He kept his voice level. "Ye were never findable and never found. So here I am."
"And what exactly did yer word say?" Her eyes didn't waver. "Come or we'll drag ye? Nay wonder I didnae answer."
Something that wasn't quite amusement moved through him and was gone. "She said ye would argue."
"Did she?"
"She also says ye would come, if a child's life hangs in the balance."
Something moved across her face, brief, almost buried. A memory surfacing and being pushed back down. Then the defiance settled back over her features like armor fastened in place.
"Then ask," she said. "Daenae take."
"I have asked." He held her eyes. "Now I take."
Her jaw tightened. She pulled against his grip, controlled, not panicked. Testing. He didn't move.
Then his men reached the bank behind him.
He heard them pull up and go still, and watched her register the sound.
Eight men. The ledge at her back. The water below. The only open path blocked by him.
The calculation moved across her face and landed somewhere he recognized.
He lifted her over his shoulder before she could decide what to do about it.
He didn't let her finish it.
She struck his back immediately, closed-fist, aimed with intention.
She'd fight.Of course, she'd fight.
Good. Fighting meant she was strong enough to make the journey.
He told himself that was why he almost admired it.
“Let me down. Now.”
He tightened his arm across the backs of her thighs and kept walking.
Then she bit him. Hard, through the wool of his tunic, enough that a curse came out of him before he could stop it.
“Dammit, lass.”
Behind him, his men had gone absolutely silent.
He set her down at the horse, turned her by the shoulders, and bound her wrists with the cord at his belt.
She stood straight through all of it, chin up, watching him with the particular fury of someone who hadn't finished with him yet.
He secured her to the saddle before him and mounted.
"Unhand me," she said.
"Heal the boy." He took the reins. "And then ye may curse me freely."
