Page 29 of Blood of the Thistle

“ʼTwas us or them,” he said simply. “That’s all there is to it.”

She swallowed but still did not move, her stricken gaze searching his as if seeing him for the very first time.

She was clearly in shock, and while Bram felt a pang of regret, he couldn’t stand and wait for her to work through it. He directed her back a few steps and, with a sharp grunt of effort that sent a protest through his shoulder, lifted her into the saddle. She gave only a small gasp of surprise, but he paid her no mind. He gathered the reins of the second horse in his shackled hand, vaulted up behind Anastasia, and wrapped one arm firmly around her before digging his heels into the gelding’s sides.

“Hold fast,” he commanded. The gelding leapt forward, and the meadow dissolved into a blur of green and gold, the drumming of hooves drowning out everything but the wind.

Chapter Nine

Her hands trembled where they gripped the coarse horsehair mane. The world swam before her, the landscape blurring into meaningless smears of green and gray as she tried and failed to focus on anything solid. A bitter, coppery taste of bile rose in her throat. Beneath the drumming of hooves and the rush of wind, a high-pitched ringing filled her ears, muffling Bram’s voice when he spoke close behind her. She heard only the ghost of his words, distant and warped, as if he called to her from underwater.

It was all too much. The certainty that those men meant harm, the sudden, horrid violence, and—most alarming of all—Bram’s sheer deadliness, which had overwhelmed his enemies completely.

She thought of her quiet little life, and the most horrific thing she’d ever witnessed before today—a car accident outside a little boutique, where the squeal of brakes had drawn her to the window just in time to see a man ejected from his car and land upon the double yellow lines. No one had died—miraculously, the man had stood again before the ambulance arrived—but she’d replayed the sight in her mind for weeks afterward.

But what she’d seen in the meadow... nothing in her life had prepared her for that.

She sat in silence, her mind reeling from what she’d witnessed. But there was no time to process the horror; survival demanded all her attention. She had never ridden a horse, and Bram had forced the gelding into a full gallop that hadn’t slackened. With no idea how to move with the animal, she was simply jostled along, her teeth rattling. Only Bram’s arm, a solid band around her waist, kept her from being thrown. She gripped the coarse mane and the saddle, her knuckles white, and prayed not to fall beneath the pounding hooves.

They burst into the trees they’d not been able to reach on foot, branches whipping past on either side as Bram guided the horse unerringly between trunks and over uneven ground, the second horse having no choice but to follow, as Bram held its reins. Within minutes the woodland gave way once more to open country, another broad meadow stretching before them, and without the slightest hesitation Bram sent both horses charging across it. He glanced behind them often but never slowed.

At length the gently rolling meadow gave way to broken country. Great slabs of pale stone jutted from the earth at odd angles, scattered among boulders and shallow gullies, forcing Bram to slow and allow the horses to pick their footing. Eventually Bram reduced their speed to a careful walk as they picked their way through the rocky ground.

The sudden quiet seemed almost unnatural after so long spent listening to pounding hooves and her own racing heartbeat.

Anna became aware of Bram in a way she hadn’t while they’d been fleeing, not merely of the arm around her waist or the broad chest at her back, but of everything she’d seen him do with terrifying efficiency only minutes ago. The same hand that held the reins had broken a man’s neck. The iron chain still hanging from his other wrist had been wound around another man’s throat, and there was blood upon his sleeve and spattered across the front of his tunic.

She shifted forward without thinking.

Bram noticed.

“Ye neednae sit so stiffly, lass. Ye’ll only make yourself sore.”

“I’m fine.”

He was silent for a moment. “Ye are nae.”

Something about the certainty of that nearly brought tears to her eyes. “I’ve never seen anyone die before.”

Bram’s arm loosened slightly around her, though he could hardly remove it altogether without risking her falling from the horse. “I supposed as much.”

“The worst thing I’d ever seen was a man thrown from a car. I thought he was dead, but he got up.” Her throat tightened. “Before today, that was the worst thing.” Anna rubbed her damp palm against her skirt. “You killed them.”

“Aye.”

There was no hesitation in his answer, no apology or attempt to soften it, and despite everything she knew about what those men had intended, a shiver moved through her.

“So easily.”

“’Twas nae easy,” he said.

“But you broke his neck.”

“Aye.”

The image rose with horrible clarity, and Anna squeezed her eyes shut.

Bram was quiet for several strides before he said, “He would have killed me.”