Page 1 of Hold Fast

PROLOGUE

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, 1420

“There’s a lass. Dead through the center.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Una’s mouth. “I’m getting good.”

“You’vebeengood. What you’re getting is deadly.”

Blair pulled up from where he’d been leaning against a tree, stalking over to the target and yanking out three arrows, all within the center ring. He brought them to her, his shaggy, dark hair falling around his face, catching in his beard as the breeze blew through the shaking leaves.

She took them, placing two in the quiver at her hip before nocking the third. She drew on the string, feeling the flex of her arms as she did. Her knuckles were cold and chapped, but the wood of the bow was warm in her grip. The fletching tickled her cheek as she took a deep breath and then, on her exhale, let the arrow fly.

There was a satisfyingthunkas the arrow struck the target, in the center once again. Greer, the white greyhound at her feet, lifted her dainty head at the sound.

“Bloody hell, Una,” Blair said, his voice somehow all the quieter for its depth. “I should put you on the wall. Our enemies wouldnae stand a chance.”

She snorted. “Your brother would never allow that.”

Blair grunted.

“How could I make myself available for his lairdship’s whims if I was murdering intruders on the wall?”

She’d been going for a light tone, but the question had sounded sharp and angry.

Then again, shewassharp and angry.

“’Twill nae be long now. You have, what? A week?”

“Ten days.”

Ten days. Ten days until she was free and could leave this horrible place. Ten days and her handfast would be over, the contract fulfilled. And, as no heir had been conceived, she would be released from the contract without a fight.

Blair grunted again, sounding like a beast that lived in the dark.

“Ten days,” he repeated. “And then what?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

She nocked another arrow, adjusted her stance, and, just before releasing the string, said, “And then I never touch another man as long as I live.”

Blair rubbed his mouth with his palm. “Have ye had your courses yet?”

It was an inappropriate question. Or, itwouldhave been an inappropriate question for anyone else. But for a healer, the discussion of a monthly flux was as commonplace as the topic of sleep. Besides, her very life relied upon the answer to that question, and Blair knew it.

“Aye. Just this morning.”

Una was allowed to leave the walls of the keep once per day, to walk the dog and gather her herbs and roots for medicines. One might think it a position of honor for the laird’s brother to be assigned to guard her for those excursions.

One would be wrong.

One day, two months into her handfast, she’d been in especially dark mood after an especially horrible evening and had needled Blair for the entirety of their walk, calling him a guard dog, telling him he must be an utter failure to be tasked with running errands and taking walks with a woman.

He’d surprised her when he muttered, “He knows I willnae touch you.”

“And how can he be so certain of that?” she had spat, feeling like a wild animal on a leash. Volatile and unpredictable.

He had shrugged his heavy shoulders and said, with a little flick of his head to the side, “Besides the fact that I dinnae touch unwilling women?”