Page 91 of Anice’s Bargain

Drake squatted opposite Anice and grabbed hold of James’s ankles. “I’ll help ye carry him inside.”

Two soldiers came forward, one wearing the fierce black hawk of the Werrick crest, and one reiver. Together, the four of them hefted James’s massive body into the expansive great hall where Isla had the floor prepared with makeshift beds for the wounded. Already men were strewn about, their blood bright against the freshly laid rushes.

Isla darted toward them, a basket of bottles clinking at her arm as she did so. “Set him there.” She waved toward a dining trestle that had been covered with a blanket. “As is fitting for a laird.”

Her somber tone shook Anice’s memory of the brief affair between Isla and James’s father.

“I’m sorry, Isla,” Anice offered softly.

Isla shook her head as though the matter was of little import. “Just because a man is good at warming a bed doesna mean he is a man worth living. I imagine yers is, though.” The older woman offered a knowing smile with her brilliantly white teeth and went to James.

She yanked open his gambeson to reveal his gore-soaked leine. Anice’s mind spun at the visible wounds, at so much blood

The air was coppery with it, the metallic odor filling her nostrils and causing bile to rise in her throat. Bile and panic. For this was too similar to Mama when she had died.

Anice’s world wavered around her. She shifted her gaze to James’s eyes, which had slid closed. Like Mama’s had.

Mama’s skin had gone waxy. She didn’t cry out anymore; she didn’t grip the sheets or push. She was asleep, amid the sea of white sheets and blood.

But it didn’t seem right. “Mama?” Anice asked.

She didn’t reply.

“Mama, please rouse.” Still she did not move.

“Mama,” Anice pleaded. “You must rouse.”

Marin put her arm around Anice’s shoulder. “She’s dead, my dear sister.”

She had died so quickly, so easily, without a word of protest.

That couldn’t happen to James. She couldn’t let him slip away so easily. He was too powerful for such a simple death; too patient, too wonderful. There hadn’t been enough time for them yet.

He would never call her mo leannan again, or cradle her in those powerful arms, or see things in her that she never saw in herself. She was a better person with him. She could not lose him, not now, not ever.

Fear gripped Anice. He couldn’t go to sleep. “James, open your eyes,” Anice whispered. “Open them.”

He did not. Isla gripped a dagger in her gnarled fist and split open his leine. The ruined linen drooped from his body, sodden. But the powerful chest Anice knew every dip and curve of was now marked with wounds and blood.

“Open your eyes.” Anice had not realized she’d said it aloud until Drake was at her side, offering her his arm.

“Let us leave him with the healer, my lady.”

A knot burned in her throat. “My mother,” Anice said. “When she had Leila. She lost too much blood; her body was too traumatized to live. She closed her eyes and…” Anice pressed her lips together, unable to speak. Instead, she went to James’s side. She took his limp arm in her hand, his ring sparkled beside that of her mother’s. “Wake, James. Wake. Please.”

He did not respond. His arm in her grip was loose, offering no resistance to her subtle shake. A shadow loomed in front of her.

Isla’s tawny eyes met hers, clear and bright beneath wrinkled lids. “He’ll no’ die on my watch, my lady.” She gave Anice a pat on the head, the way she had so often done when Anice was a mere girl. “But ye may verra well kill him if ye keep shaking his arm like that. I canna keep my stitches straight.”

Heat flared in Anice’s cheeks and she immediately dropped her hold on him. A clatter of feet sounded outside, pulling her attention briefly from James. Panic raced through her anew. Had the new band of reivers broken through so quickly?

Grabbing a nearby sword, she raced with Drake to defend the great hall as best they could. For beyond the wounded and dying within the great hall were the deeper rooms of Werrick and the women and children hiding within them.

The footsteps did not come with the frantic thundering of marauders storming the castle. Figures filled the doorway, including her father’s familiar frame. Anice stopped short.

At his side was Lord Bastionbury.

“The battle is over.” Her father clapped the other earl on his back in the age-old show of camaraderie among men. “Bastionbury showed up at the perfect time to put an end to it all.”

“You got James’s message,” Anice said.

Lord Bastionbury was a man only slightly older than her own father, with kind green eyes that crinkled in a smile at the mention of James. “Aye. I told him I will always be there should he need me. I was pleased to get his missive and came posthaste.” He glanced about. “Where is he?”

Injured. Perhaps dying. Maybe dead.Anice’s throat went thick. Rather than try to answer, she glanced back toward the great hall.

“He’s been injured, my lord.” Drake answered for her.

Anice heart squeezed as though in a vice. She had been the one to injure him. Suddenly, she regretted her decision to leave his side. He no longer needed her to protect him. There was no danger from an attack, only from slipping away as he slept. The same as her mother.

Anice dropped her sword and ran. Down the hall, through the doors of the great hall, and not stopping until she stood directly in front of Isla. The healer had a needle in hand, pulled taut while securing a stitch in James’s torso.

Anice locked her gaze on James’s face, yet unable to take in such a sight. “Is he still alive?”

Isla’s hand swept down to James’s body once more in Anice’s peripheral. “Aye, my lady. I know yer Ma dinna wake up when she slept, but this is different, aye? His sleep keeps him from feeling my stitches. He’s away from the pain. Let him be.”

Away from pain, but also hopefully away from death. Anice wanted to hold his hand, to feel his embrace as it had always been, warm and strong and curled around hers like armor. She stared at his limp hand and stood helplessly at his side, for there was nothing to do now, but wait to see if he would live.