“Eric.”
“What are ye doin’ here?”
Marissa’s voice shook as she spoke, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Despite what had happened at the cèilidh, she had never assumed that Eric would be standing before her now. But there he was.
She’d seen only mere glimpses of him in the last three years. A flash of him through a crowd, just quick enough that she would begin to doubt if he’d been there at all, until one of his letters had arrived.
But now that he was in front of her and without distractions, it rocked her all over again how uncanny his look was.
Still, after all this time and everything she had done, she had to admit that he was handsome. It was one of the reasons why she’d never understood why he hadn’t given up. Many women would have been giddy to marry a laird who looked like him.
A predatory smile tugged at his lips, sending a chill all the way to her bones. Her eyes scanned the group, noting just how outnumbered she and Arthur were. At the thought of it, her stomach went sour.
“Imagine me surprise,” Eric drawled, his voice sliding through the air between them to slick over her skin like oil, “when the man I sent to fetch ye didnae return.”
He took a step forward. The distance between them closing by even so much as a step made Marissa want to run away.
I dinnae want to be close to him. I dinnae think I can bear it.
“The man ye sent to kill her, ye mean,” Arthur barked.
Marissa’s eyes flicked to the back of his head. She couldn’t see his face, not as he stood with his back to her so he could position himself between her and the intruders. But it was easy enough to read his body language.
His shoulders were squared, facing Eric directly. Even beneath the fabric of his clothes, Marissa could see that his muscles were tense and bulging.
Eric might be a predator, but Arthur was the bigger threat. That much was obvious.
But that would only matter if it was just the two of them. It’s nae. There must be ten men standin’ before him. He cannae take them on by himself. Nay one can do that.
A knot of dread formed in her belly at the thought. It sent out icy fingers, slithering within her and locking itself around her muscles. She became paralyzed with it.
“Ye think I sent him to kill her?” Eric said, before barking an erratic laugh. “Nay. I wouldnae kill her. I sent him afterye.” He cocked his head at Arthur, his eyes sweeping over him from navel to nose, sizing him up. “I see that he failed.”
Arthur shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the insinuation that the instruction had been to take his life. “Mayhap ye sent the wrong man.”
Eric let out another laugh, but this one was dark. “Clearly,” he said.
It was a simple word. But the way it fell from his lips made it sound like a threat. There was a challenge behind every syllable. One that Marissa could see Arthur reacting to.
His hands flexed at his sides, nothing more than a twitch of the fingers. But it was enough to tell her that he wished to draw his weapon.
She scanned his body quickly, looking for anything that he might be able to use. But as she continued to look, her heart sank.
The only thing he seemed to have carried with him was a small hunting knife, strapped to his waist in a leather sheath. She had seen it before. And she knew it to be a dull, old thing. More of a tool than a weapon.
So, it is only Arthur, who may as well be unarmed, against ten men.
The odds of this encounter did not appear to be in their favor. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“It’s a strange thing, really,” Eric mused, “how this has played out.”
He was advancing now, taking small, measured steps toward them with each word. His head stayed cocked to the side, like a wolf searching for the perfect opportunity to pounce.
“How is that?” Arthur asked, continuing to shift with every move that Eric made.
